The Hunger
by Narya
Summary: After a snow storm Kurt discovers that things have changed in Lima, everyone seems to have disappeared and there are dead bodies everywhere. When things start to clear out he will realize that the need to survive changes everything.
1. Prologue

**This is a Shout to anyone out there.**

My name is Kurt Hummel, I'm 17 and I live in Lima, or whatever it's left of it.

If there is anyone out there, please answer this message.

Right now a group of us is barricading at McKinley High School, should you need refuge or if you have any doubt about someone you know having the Hunger you are welcome to come and take refuge here as long as you can prove you are not infected.

Those infected will be shot immediately.

_Dad, Carole, if you are out there, please try to contact me. God, I hope you are still alive._


	2. Part I

**Part I**

Kurt was out for the night, he went to see Blaine, his boyfriend, who was staying at Dalton's dormitories in Westerville for the duration of the winter.

They didn't know that the snow storm would be so bad that he wouldn't be able to go back to town for the weekend, but it was probably that bout of bad luck what had him alive right now. Knowing that his father would get it he called home and said he'd stay there until the roads were safe again (as a former student he didn't had _much_ trouble to get his way with the staff). His father did complain for a good fifteen minutes and got that 'sex is a good gift to yourself at 30' voice but he agreed that with all that black ice and the snow falling like a while blanket everywhere it was best to stay there. Maybe the next morning things would be fine again and he could go home and have lunch with his family.

The snow didn't stop until that Sunday night and by then Kurt was quite worried because the cell phones signal got lost first thing that Saturday morning, and as much as he called to his house no one would pick up. The TV was dead, the phones were dead and he was really worried. So, when he realized that the snow had stopped he got his things and went out of the building immediately.

Blaine didn't like it, he tried to convince him to stay with them until the morning, until the roads were safe again but he was too worried to hear anything from anyone. He needed to be home.

*.*.*.*

The ride was awful, between the slippery asphalt and the complete lack of any kind of electricity on the road Kurt was having a hard time controlling the navigator. Add to that the fact that there were countless car crashes, some of them even burning and none of them with people inside, and you could say that Kurt was feeling really scared.

Like, terrified in an eerie creepy way.

What the heck had happened?

He saw deserted streets and snow.

He saw some burning places and snow.

And there were things that made him stop the car and vomit to the street, and snow.

He was more worried than ever.

He checked his phone and found he didn't have any kind of signal, no matter how close he got to civilization, to home.

By the time he got to the house he was already freaking out, and barely had time to open the door before he was jumping out and getting to the porch. He pushed the door, which was already almost open, and peeked inside.

"Hello? Dad? Carole? Finn? Is anyone there?" he asked to the dark house.

No one answered.

He turned on the lights, but nothing happened, so he took his phone to light the way.

Something was really wrong, he could feel that. His father wouldn't have left the house open like that if he wasn't in a hurry, not after all those times people took the time to go and paint 'faggot' to the garage door. It was obvious that his father wasn't at home. Heck, he hadn't seen anyone on the way. It was as if the whole town had disappeared.

A noise behind him put him into alert just before he started going up the stairs.

He turned around, the phone in his hand as his only weapon, and found Fin.

With a shotgun aiming at his face.


	3. Part II

**Part II**

"Finn, take that out of my face!" he shrieked as he ducked hiding his head between his arms. "What the heck is wrong with you?"

"Kurt, dude, is that you?" the tall teen said, doing as he was asked and lowering the gun, but not letting it go. "Is that really you?"

"Who else could I be, Finn?" Kurt asked, standing up. "What happened here, where is my father? Where is everyone?"

"I have no idea. When I came home it was like this, so I stayed here and waited for someone to come back"

"And when did you get home exactly?" Kurt asked, feeling the start of a headache.

"Uh, at some point Saturday morning. I was at that party with the team" he said, shrugging.

"So you are going to tell me that you stayed all weekend here alone?"

"I met with Puck this morning at the store. It seems his family disappeared too and he was stocking on food"

"More like ransacking I'd suppose"

"Not like I wouldn't get why, man. This thing is weird. Have you seen the streets? There is blood everywhere and I can't contact anyone on the phone. With Puck we were thinking of just staying together until things go back to normal, if they get back to normal" Finn said, resting the shotgun on his shoulder. "I actually came back to look for some clothes and food"

"Wait, you met with him this morning and you are just back from being with him?"

"The car was gone, so I had to walk everywhere. I'm beat, man. I had to rest from time to time" he said as an excuse.

They climbed up the stairs, Kurt close to his step-brother all the way. The only light on the house came from the windows, so it was kind of scary to be separated.

"You should get some clothes too. I don't think it would be a good idea to stay here, like, we should stick together" Finn said while he started putting on some winter clothes on a backpack.

"What about out parents?" Kurt asked, from the doorway. "What if they come back and they don't find us?"

"I don't know, man. I was thinking of leaving them a note saying I was at Puck's" the tall boy said, while taking his phone charger and some batteries he had in his night table. "We should get going, Kurt"

"Ok, just… let me pack some things" he said, walking slowly to his room, in a bit of a daze.

"I'll go see if we have some flashlights and stuff in the attic. Be careful, if you hear anything weird, just scream and I'll come running" Finn said before disappearing down the hallway.

Kurt went through his clothes with his mind going all over the place. He was really worried for his Dad and Carole, so worried he hadn't even checked if their cars were in the garage when he got there. Where could they be, where would they go without even leaving a note? Maybe it was some kind of urgency, but even then they would have taken the time to leave some kind message.

He picked a few things thinking mostly of how warm they would be and trying to recognize them by their texture, as it was obvious that he couldn't see a thing inside his closet.

This was probably going to be a fashion hell, he was sure of it. But somehow that paled in comparison to the more pressing matters at hand, like… what the hell was wrong with this town.

And were was his dad.


	4. Part III

**Part III**

They filled the navigator with everything they thought that could be useful in any kind of emergency and rode to Puck's house immediately after leaving a message in the fridge, one right by the phone and one in the TV screen (Finn's idea). The conversation on the way consisted basically on Finn letting him know of everyone he managed to get news about, who had disappear and who seemed to be around.

So far the number wasn't really big.

From the boys the only ones Finn knew of were Puck and Sam. So far Puck was alive, but his family was gone, and Sam was looking around the city for his siblings, so Finn met with him randomly that afternoon and told him of their plan.

Rachel had been with Puck in the store, apparently having spent the night with her parents in their basement re-watching some kind of 'award show thingy' and had met with Puck on Saturday at the Temple. She was planning to meet them there later.

The other girls were completely out of the radar, mostly because Finn had been too tired to walk to everyone's houses to see if they were well. Kurt said quickly that now that they had the navigator it would be the first thing to do after they unpacked their stuff. He couldn't bear the idea of staying in one place, not knowing what was happening to the people he loved, so he was going to do everything possible to find them.

He killed the engine as soon as he got in front of the house, Puck waiting for them in the driveway ready to help them carry the stuff inside.

The house was covered in candles, creating an even more eerie feeling to it. The silence of it and the illumination was creeping Kurt out.

They worked quickly, stocking clothes and food, and leaving the guns that Finn was completely sure would be useful on the table, next to the flashlights and a radio that Kurt was sure could work on batteries, not that he had ever needed to test it.

"Man, where did you get all these babies?" whistled Puck while picking up the shotgun that Finn had been carrying around for a while.

"My father used to go hunting when I was a kid" answered Kurt, with a shrug.

He started to put the batteries in the radio, trying to pick up reception, while the other two got the task of bringing things out of the car. The radio was a bit more important now; after all… they needed to know what was going on and maybe the authorities had given some kind of message. Right?

The only thing he got was static.

His phone was no help at all.

"Ok, I'm going to go to Mercedes'" he said, standing up after turning off the radio.

"Are you crazy?" Puck said, from the fridge where he was making himself a sandwich, probably using the stuff that could rot after a few days without electricity.

"I'm not going to stay here not knowing where she is. She could be hurt and with no way of telling anyone, so, I'm going, no matter what you say"

He took one of the guns, although he didn't really know how to use it (he wasn't a fan of hunting after all) and a flashlight, before Puck put one of his hands in his forearm to stop him.

"Dude, you can't go outside just like that. What if something happens to you? We have no way of knowing"

"I'll be fine" Kurt said, taking his arm back.

"No, dude, you are _not_ going alone. Let me take a jacket and I'll go with you" Puck said, before going to the closet near the door and getting a some kind of fashion monster that Kurt wouldn't use in his life, but that seemed warm enough for the snow outside.

"What about Finn? He'll stay here alone?" Kurt asked feeling a bit weary.

"Rachel will be here with her parents in a while. He can stay alone for that long. Let's go. The streets creep me out and I'd like to be back soon too"


	5. Part IV

**Part IV**

The ride was silent except for the sound of the engine and Puck playing with the radio, trying to find any station working, thought it wasn't really that likely to happen as the blackout apparently covered all Lima, including the buildings that hosted the radio stations.

Thought the radio stations from other places didn't seem to work either. Just like the phones, and the TV, there was no signal.

The only light in the road came from the car and it barely helped Kurt feel safe. He just couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to jump to the streets; the something was going to happen.

Mercedes lived really close to Lima Memorial Hospital, so Kurt was almost sure that if something bad had happen to her at least she'd have medical attention soon enough. But he couldn't be sure. He just couldn't be sure of anything right now and it was making him insane with worry for everyone and…

"Kurt, breathe. You'll kill us both if you keep accelerating" Puck said with a thin voice, and Kurt spared a glance to see him holding on to the seat while trying to put his hand in front of him in case they crashed.

He took a breath and decelerated.

He made a turn at the Advance Auto Parts and went down Dana Ave. looking out for his friend's house.

The street was a disaster. There was a house burning up and a car that was went around a tree as if it was made of rubber. All the house's doors were open, some windows too, and there wasn't a single light anywhere.

Kurt pulled into Mercedes' driveway and didn't bother killing the engine; instead he maneuvered the car so that the head lights illumined the house through the windows. He took the gun and a flashlight and got off the car, calling out for his friend.

The house was dark and empty, no surprise there, but had clear signs of a fight having place. There was turned up furniture and things thrown in the way, as if someone was trying to stop something else from getting them.

Kurt's heart beat loudly in his chest. His grip on the gun tightened while he pointed the flashlight to the living room, then the kitchen.

He gave a gasp when he entered the bathroom and saw the way the mirror was cracked, blood in the center of it, as if a head had been crushed against it. The massive amount of blood on the sink and the floor, the footsteps that smeared it across the room and into hallway…

His legs gave up under him and he almost fell to the ground. Strong arms stopped him from falling, holding him close to Puck's chest as his vision started blurring.

It was the first clear proof they had that whatever happened in the town wasn't exactly peaceful. That maybe they were all dead, that his friends and parents were dead, that they weren't going to find them.

"Come on, Kurt" Puck said in a tight voice, to which Kurt looked up to find him fighting tears too. "We need to keep checking the house. Maybe she is hiding somewhere"

"Or maybe she is dead, Puck"

"We don't know yet. We'll lose faith when we see her body, ok?" the slightly taller teen said, making Kurt see him straight to his eyes. "We can't go on thinking that everyone is dead. If we start thinking that then it means that all those people who disappeared are dead, and I can't stand the idea of that, ok? I need to believe that my sister is alive somewhere and that she'll find her way back home"

Yeah, Kurt could totally get that. He needed to believe the same about his father after all.


	6. Part V

**Part V**

"Oh my God" was the only thing Kurt got to say before turning to the side and emptying what little he had in his stomach on that lovely plant the Jones had next to the back door.

The backyard looked like a scene out of a horror movie; that was quite clear. There was blood, lots of it and the lawn was all messed up, as if there had been a fight or someone had dragged something across it. But mostly, there was blood covering the snow everywhere.

And there was a body lying there, or parts of it.

"Well, I think we can say there was quite a fight here" Puck said, coldly, but with a tremble in his voice that betrayed his true emotions. "This is the first time I see a dead body" the guy said, getting closer and turning the body around.

"I saw some on the way from Westerville" Kurt said, whipping his mouth with some disposable tissues he had with him, courtesy of Blaine who introduced him to the habit. "Who is it, Puck?"

"I don't know, its face is missing" the man said, barely containing the dry heaves.

"It's not Mercedes, is it?" Kurt asked, fearing the answer but completely unable to get closer and look himself.

"No, it's a dude" Puck answered, looking around and expecting to find someone else. "I think it's her father, but I don't really knew the guy so I might be wrong"

"Take a look at his hands; he had a weird skull ring next to his wedding ring" Kurt suggested weakly. On the backyard Puck took one of the man hands in his and examined his fingers.

"Yeah, it's him then…"

"Oh, God… Mercedes" Kurt whispered, taking a hand to his mouth in though. Wherever his friend was she'd be devastated if she knew about this. She was a daddy's girl through and through. He knew perfectly how it felt to lose a parent and he really didn't want that for the girl, for no one he loved, but right now his heart went with Mercedes.

He let his body fell to the side and slide down the door frame.

Puck was by his side a couple minutes later, looking positively white, and really worried. He sat in front of him and took him in his arms, letting him rest and breathe against his neck until Kurt calmed down.

"We should get going" Puck said after a while. "I don't think your girl is anywhere near here, though we could try and leave her a message just in case she comes back"

"Ok. I'm sorry"

"It's ok. I felt like resting a bit too" Puck said, trying to lighten up the mood a little. It wasn't really working, but Kurt appreciated it anyway.

They left a message in the fridge and the notepad besides de phone, which were the obvious places to look for something like that. Puck was ransacking the house in search of batteries and flashlights while Kurt looked for any kind of weapon they could use. He sent a mental sorry to Mercedes about stealing, but he was sure the girl would understand.

It was close to midnight and they were tired, but this was way more important than sleeping, they were almost ready anyway.

"I feel kind of bad about Mr. Jones" Puck said when Kurt went to stand next to him while he threw food to his backpack.

"It's not like we can bury him, Puck" Kurt said, looking uncomfortable.

"We could try to cover him at least. It doesn't feel right to leave his body there, vulnerable to anything that might happen" he added, scratching softly the nape of his neck "You keep doing this and I'll go cover the body with some snow, say a kaddish maybe, leave some kind of sign of where it is… just… dunno, it feels weird to leave the body there, ok?"

"Let's finish this up and I'll go with you. I'd rather say good bye too" Kurt said, his eyes downcast.

They filled the backpack with as much as they could, Kurt having all his pockets full of batteries and candles in his bag. They were in the garage, looking for shovels, when they hear the first sound they had hear in hours.

It freaked them out.

It was a low growl, like that of a dog and it carried through the air with an acrid smell.

Kurt looked at Puck, trying to keep his calm, while the other boy took the gun from his hands and opened the door to the house. They walked silently to the backyard, looking out for any strange thing. For all they knew it must have been a dog, but it was so difficult to really believe that given everything that had happened in the last days that they couldn't help but feel scared.

At least Kurt was sure that Puck was just as scared as he was if the trembling he could feel under his hands was any indication.

The mohawked boy opened the door slowly, as if he really didn't want anyone to hear it creak.

"It's gone" he muttered after looking out for a couple of seconds. "The body is gone; it was dragged away".


	7. Part VI

**Part VI**

"What do you mean gone?" Kurt asked in a fierce whisper.

"It's gone. It's not there, someone took it!" Puck exclaimed while still trying to keep his voice low. "I don't know about you, dude, but I think we should go back. Now. Shit is getting real"

"Ok, let's do that"

Neither would admit it, but the way that they almost run to the car after getting their bags spoke of their fear more than words could ever say. For all they knew that growl could have been a dog, but there was no way a dog could have carried Mr. Jones as he was a pretty big man. For now, though, they rather think that while it was weird that the body had been dragged away it wasn't really any weirder than people disappearing.

They got in to the car and drove to Puck's house at an unreasonable speed, considering the black ice and the car crashes everywhere.

"You know, you can go a bit faster, right?" Puck said, with a look of urgency in his face.

"If I go any faster I'll lose control, so sit tight and shut up. I don't want to overturn" Kurt barked back, his eyes never leaving the road. Now more than anytime he felt that something was going to run to the streets any moment. He didn't felt safe at all.

"If you don't go faster it will catch us" Puck said, looking out of the window.

"There's nothing behind us, God!" Kurt exclaimed after checking the rearview mirror and giving a punch in the boy's shoulder.

"Puck is fine, there's no need to call me God, babe" the mohawked boy said, rising his eyebrows in a teasing way.

"I'd like it if you'd just cut that out, I'm trying to drive here!"

Kibby St was filled with debris, the headlights were barely useful at this speed and frankly Kurt didn't know this street well enough to remember where Puck's house was when he didn't have someone point it out with him, the least he needed was Puckerman goofing off besides him.

"Turn right next street, dude" Puck said, having obviously calmed down a little.

The silence came back to the car, unnerving Kurt even more than the stress he had seconds before.

"What do you think it was?" he asked, unable to keep the question to himself anymore.

"A dog, it must have been a dog. A really big dog"

"Did you see it?"

"Yes"

"Are you sure it was a dog?" Kurt asked, almost picturing the answer.

"No," the boy answered in a firm voice "but I'm sure as hell that I hope it was. It had the creepiest yellow eyes, though, like a cat… only… in a bigger body" Puck said. He looked pale, it showed even in the moonlight, so he must have been really white, Kurt thought.

"What the heck happened to this town, Puck? Where is everyone?" the thinner boy asked, looking tired, just as they pulled into the driveway.

"No idea, but what it's bothering me now is why are we here, how it is that we are not missing like everyone else" Puck said, taking the backpacks and the gun. "I mean, people disappeared, right. But why didn't we, why are we alive?"

"No idea, Puck" Kurt answered, locking the car doors with the remote.

They were about to cross the porch when Puck stopped him, a weird worried look in his eyes.

"Do you think we could check up on everyone else tomorrow? On Lauren maybe?"

"You sure you don't want to go now?"

"It seems like a bad idea to go out when you can't see anything and with that creepy thing outside. Let's go with daylight. Besides, my girl is tough, she can protect herself" Puck answered and Kurt had a little moment of weird pride to see this boy, this man, think so highly of his ex-girlfriend when a year ago girls were barely more than means to an end.

"Ok, we'll go when it's light out again" he said with a small smile.


	8. Part VII

**Part VII**

Rachel came with her dads a few minutes after they had gone to check on Mercedes, so by the time they got there she had complete control of the house and everything inside it, including Finn.

When they opened the door she was the first one there, asking if there had been any new about their friend. Kurt shook his head and answered that they had only found Mr. Jones' dead body and they got everything they could get that might be useful.

They shared a hug that bothered him, not because of her but because the only thing he could think of was what could have possibly dragged a man so big. What kind of animal could do that?

Anyway, his friend needed some kind of comfort, so he hugged her back even if it was a little cold. Detachment felt a bit like his middle name right now, he couldn't even begin to really care about Mr. Jones death when he was this freaked out about what took him.

"Boys, there's food in the kitchen" Leroy said from the hallway.

"I'm not really hungry, sir, but thank you"

"Me neither, sir" Puck said, a few feet behind him.

"Well, I don't care. We don't really know what is going to happen or if we'll have a chance to get a meal by this time tomorrow, so you are going to eat now" Hiram said, appearing from the kitchen with an apron around his waist. "You may not feel like eating, but not doing so it's irresponsible"

Both boys looked at each other, as if wondering if the other was really going to be able to stomach anything, but they kind of got what Rachel's dad was saying and why, so they didn't protest about it. Instead they went to the kitchen got a plate and sat down to eat in silence.

Without anyone talking the house seemed to have been swallowed by the silence from outside.

* * *

><p>They slept through the night in turns. Neither Puck nor Kurt actually said anything to anyone else, but Hiram and Leroy obviously knew that something was wrong and stayed awake long after Rachel and Finn had fell asleep curled against each other in the couch.<p>

No one said anything about what was going to happen, but when Puck started to fall asleep on the table Hiram came with a blanket to cover him before he could complain.

"Sleep for a few hours, if anything happens we'll wake you up"

Kurt wondered for a while how must have Puck managed to fall asleep the day before, all alone, worried. Probably, just as Finn, he must have spent the night awake and looking out the window, wondering if his family was going to come back at some point. All this before instinct kicked in and told him that getting food was the most important thing to do on a Sunday morning.

"You sure you don't want to sleep too, Kurt?" Leroy asked a few minutes later.

"No, I'm ok. I slept plenty this weekend, actually" he answered, looking out the window for nth time.

"Then, can you keep an eye in my place, darling? I think I'll follow Noah's footsteps. Wake me up if anything happens" the man said, looking at Hiram before giving him a quick kiss and slipping to the living room.

Around four in the morning it was Kurt and Hiram sleeping in the couches while Leroy and Puck kept watch.

Before the couple, who still slept, woke up, Puck shook Kurt to rouse him and made him follow the mohawked boy to the kitchen. There, between cups of coffee, they told the older couple everything they saw at Mercedes house and everything about the dog.

"I didn't want to tell you last night, you would've been too worried or scared to think straight… and I wasn't thinking straight myself" Puck said, scratching his scalp.

"Neither was I" Kurt admitted, twirling the coffee in his hands.

At breakfast no one mentioned anything to Finn and Rachel and kept the night watch as a secret, the same with what had happened at the Jones. They all had their reasons not to, though most of them just thought that the kids were a bit unreliable and couldn't really be trusted not to fall asleep or to give in to hysterics (though maybe that was just Rachel), but Kurt was secretly pleased to have been there that night, to be part of the group that kept watch, to be trusted with the responsibility.


	9. Part VIII

**Part VIII**

Lauren lived really close to the school, like really, really close to it, just crossing the river, a few houses from the Stadium.

So far it seemed like this was the only place that didn't look like hell. It even looked calm. Sure, there was blood on the streets and the snow had way more color that it should, but it seemed peaceful in comparison.

It was a big house with a dirt driveway, to which Kurt pulled in once again leaving the engine on after getting down.

It was just Puck and himself, because Puck seemed to know where everyone's house was and they were quite clear that they weren't going to be alone. Groups or pairs but no one was flying solo, not if they wanted to keep being alive, they couldn't risks it.

Oh, and Kurt wasn't going to let anyone else drive his baby.

Puck opened the door calling out his friend's name and, thank god, was meet with a cry from said girl just a few seconds later. They both ran to where the voice had come and stared in confusion at what was obviously a closet door.

There was blood on the floor, lots of it; as if someone had bled all over the place after a serious injury and it went down the front door like someone had been dragged while bleeding. Kurt even imagined he had seen a bone, but he didn't want to look back and check.

The taller boy held his gun tight in his hand but his worried look tipped Kurt over. Puck really didn't know what was behind the door and was scared, but he also was really worried about one of the few girls he could really call his friend.

"Lauren?" Puck asked with his voice firm, even if the hand on Kurt's shoulder shook.

"Puckerman, is that you? Please, tell me they are gone" said the voice from inside the closet.

"Who is gone? There is no one here but Kurt and me" the boy answered, confused.

Then the door opened and from behind it the girl who had been hiding came crashing into Puck's arms. She was crying, a sight that Kurt never though he'd see, and she had blood all over her. Her hands were stained, so were her clothes, and she was limping.

"Are you ok, babe? What happened?" Puck asked, carding his hands through her tangled hair.

"I don't know… My mom, she… she went crazy. I don't know what happened… She said she was hungry, really hungry, and she started eating everything we had on the fridge… and then my dad came home and… Oh God, Puckerman" cried the girl, hugging him even closer if possible.

"Shh, it's ok. Let's get outside and breathe some fresh air. Ok?" Puck said, slowly motioning her to the door.

Outside everything seemed just as bad as inside and it wasn't like there was wind to make the air seem fresh, but Kurt thought that maybe, after being hiding in that closet for who knows how long, it would be a good idea to just stay in an open place.

"Where are they?" the girl asked after a while, her face white and pale, maybe a little green.

"Who?" Kurt asked, placing a hand over hers.

"My parents, they should have been there… there's no way they could have left"

"The house was empty when we got here, dear" Kurt answered, not really knowing how to say.

"They couldn't have left" she said, looking lost.

"They are not the only ones, babe, everyone else has disappeared" Puck said, still hugging her even if only with one arm.

"No, you don't understand… they were dead... Both of them were dead... I'm sure" Lauren said, looking at her friend as if she was trying to make him to believe her.

"Exactly what happened here, Lauren?" Kurt asked, feeling cold sweat run down his neck.

Lauren's parents were dead and missing. Did that meant that everyone else was the same? That his dad was dead? No, his dad had obviously taken the car, so he could be anywhere. This was _not_ the same situation.

"My mum was hungry, she couldn't stop eating… she said it felt as if there was a hole in her stomach that she had to fill… She ate everything… And when my dad came home, he gave her a kiss like always" at this the girl looked possibly green and Kurt was really sure that if it wasn't for Puck's arms she might be about to faint on them. "He kissed her… and she kissed back… and then she started to eat his face. Literally"


	10. Part IX

**Part IX**

"What do you mean literally?" Puck asked, throwing Kurt a look that brought him back immediately to Mercedes' house and her father in the backyard.

"I mean that she bit his fucking lip off, chew, swallowed and did the same with his fucking face while he was alive" she barked to Puck, getting some distance between them. "She ate his face off and tried to do the same with me" she added, looking at her ankle which was sporting an awful bit mark. Like that of a dog who had actually taken skin.

"What did you do?" Puck asked, worried.

"What I do best... I fought back... I broke her neck" she hiccupped, looking at her bloodied hands. "She fell to the ground and I just couldn't… I hid in the closet, trying to forget what had just happened… but I could still hear her chewing… I could still hear her eating from my dad"

* * *

><p>They had managed to get a sobbing and traumatized Lauren into the Navigator, all the while throwing glances over her shoulders as they walked. When the girl was inside they stood a few feet from the car, talking in whispers.<p>

"Dude, what are we going to do? What if what happened to Lauren's parents is what happened to everyone else?"

"We don't know that yet. There must be someone else alive and around. Just like we found her there must be others" Kurt said, looking to the road, his eyes full of despair. "What do you think happened to the bodies?"

"Who knows, maybe they got dragged away just like Mr. Jones" Puck answered, fisting his hands inside his pockets.

"We are going to have to tell Finn and Rachel, we might be in danger and they deserve to know if that's the case" Kurt said after a while.

"And we need to try and find everyone else, at least the guys from the glee club and the team"

"What happened to Sam? Finn said that he was going to meet with us at your house"

"Dunno, man. I just hope he is ok and makes it today" Puck said with a shrug. "He was at the party with us and his family at the motel, so when he got there and didn't see anyone he just started looking everywhere. But, his siblings are really young so, I'm sure he is way more worried about them than himself"

"What about your sister? Aren't you worried about her?" Kurt asked.

"Are you kidding? I'm terrified for her, but I looked everywhere, all Saturday and Sunday, and I couldn't find her, but she is older. If she is ok she'll find her way home. I'm sure she will"

Kurt decided not comment on that last sentence. 'If she is ok she'll find her way home'… If she is ok... What if she wasn't? Puck must have been thinking about his sister (not his mom, he realized) as much as he was thinking about his dad and refused to lose hope. God, Kurt wished he had half the amount of hope that his father, a grown up, could be alive as Puck seemed to have about his little sister.

"So, what do we do now?" Kurt asked, going to the driver's side of the car, but not opening the door yet.

"Let's get Lauren to my house and then maybe we can check on everyone else at their houses" Puck said, shrugging. "I don't think my girl is in any condition to be driving around with us. She needs to sleep well and, dunno, get some food"

"I'm sure Rachel's dad will be more than happy to play mother hen on her while we check on everyone else" Kurt said, getting inside the car and finishing the conversation.

He looked to the backseat and found Lauren fast asleep, as if she hadn't slept in days. Maybe this was the first time she felt safe at all during this weekend and the first time she could actually sleep.

"We'll have to look at her foot, too" Puck said from besides him.

His eyes traveled to the injured ankle and he nodded while starting the car. The wound looked awful, all red and yellow in places. He vaguely remembered something someone at Dalton had told him once, about how the mouth had way more germs than any other place in the body.

"Do you have a first aid kit at home?" he asked Puck, while looking over his shoulder for that silly blind spot while he was in reverse.

"Uh, nope, I used the last of it after the last fight club"

"We'll have to get one from the pharmacy then"

"Shop-lifting, Hummel? I like this new you"


	11. Part X

**Part X**

After a quick stop to a desolate pharmacy where Kurt would be embarrassed to say that he took more than they needed right then (you never know, maybe it would be useful in the future). They drove to Puck's house and left the girl in Leroy's charge, who said he'd fix that ankle in no time while Hiram's fixed her something to eat.

With a serious look at the older couple Puck said there was something they had to talk with Finn and Rachel and went to the place where the girl had left all the guns saying it was too dangerous to leave them around.

Their friends were in the backyard, Rachel singing something while Finn tried to drum a base on different surfaces. They were having a good time, but they didn't shine with joy as they always did and that was obvious to Kurt. This situation was taking a toll on everyone one, not just himself.

"Guys, look, we want to talk with you about something important" Puck said, sitting in the grass and motioning to them to get closer.

Finn and Rachel left immediately what they were doing before and went to sit next to him. Kurt just didn't want to deal with all the havoc his words were going to bring, so he stayed by the door and looked out to the sky. The clouds were getting darker and the air was less chilled than before. Maybe, if they were lucky, it would rain and wash away the snow and blood from the streets.

"Last night, when we found Mr. Jones body, there was something we didn't tell you…" Puck started, looking really uncomfortable. "There was something there that dragged him. It had weird eyes, like a cat, and it was way bigger than a dog. We really don't know what it was but it dragged the body way too easily"

Finn looked green and Rachel looked like she wanted to ask something, but Puck just held his hand in front of him to stop her.

"I don't really think you've gone into other people's houses but I can tell you, they are wreck. Blood everywhere and, at least at Lauren's it seemed like something was dragged away" Puck continued, looking at Kurt for confirmation. He nodded, but didn't really want to talk about it, so he stayed silent. "We really don't want to scare you more than you should be, but it would be best that you went everywhere together and each of you carried a gun. Just in case"

"Carry a gun? But I don't even know how to use one, not to mention how dangerous they are!" Rachel complained.

"Well, you learn then. But, believe me, if whatever it is out there is as out for blood as we think it is, you'll want to be able to defend yourself" Kurt said, completely serious. "Most probable thing is that it's stronger than ordinary men and apparently likes to eat meat, be it human or not"

"They eat human meat?" Rachel said, going completely green. No surprise there, she barely tolerated the idea of eating meat altogether, eating humans would be the double the gross for her than it was for them.

"Lauren's mom ate her father and tried to eat her, so I think that whatever this craziness is it's too dangerous to be worrying about morals" Puck said, shrugging and handing them the gun and shotgun they had took from the storeroom. "Pick one, the gun is faster to recharge but weaker, and the shotgun makes more damage but the kickback is stronger"

"Is this really necessary?" Finn said, picking the shotgun again, just like the night before "I mean, yeah, I thought it might be a scary to go outside when there's no one around and maybe wild animals could come to stay at the city or something, but… guns, really?"

"We don't know, but whatever happened to Lauren's mom might have happened to someone else, and if that's the case… I don't think they'll stop until they are dead" Puck said, standing up. "If you see someone acting weird you shoot to the heart or the head, but you don't stay still waiting for something to happen. You shoot to kill"

"What if it's a friend?" Rachel asked, voicing the question that they all feared.

"I don't know"


	12. Part XI

**Part XI**

In the end they left soon after that, all of them, as Kurt managed to jumpstart a car that had been abandoned in the streets and Rachel insisted that they were going to try and find some of their friends too.

They decided to let Finn and Rachel in charge of Tina, Mike, Santana and Artie, who were the ones that lived closer to her house and, really, the only ones she knew where they lived. Kurt was driving to Quinn and Britt's houses and Sam's motel. If they managed to find him they'll convince him to go with them, with or without his siblings. Heck, Kurt could even drive around town looking for them if he wanted, but he didn't stand the thought that there was someone who they knew was alive but was wandering around defenseless.

They went to Quinn's house first, mostly because it was the first on the way, but really, they were all pretty far from each other or as far as you can get in city like Lima.

The house was small, as it was only Quinn and her mom who lived there, so they only needed a few minutes to realize it was empty. There was a lot of blood in the backyard, but no sign of a struggle or fight. Just… blood.

Out of instinct Puck searched inside the kitchen, looking around cabinets and the fridge.

"Kurt, take a look at this" he said, opening the door.

The inside was empty, there were a couple of bottles and empty Tupperware containers, but all the food was gone.

"You think they got the munchies too?" Puck asked, looking at a ball of waxed paper that once had butter.

"I really hope not, but she is obviously not here. Let's go look for Britt" Kurt said, closing the door and wanting to get out of there as soon as possible. The blood on the kitchen floor made him nauseous.

They got inside the car in silence and drove in silence. They looked at the streets, the trees, the snow, the blood; there were some fires in this neighborhood too, but neither felt like going to check on those. It took about 6 minutes to get there and neither of them spoke, as if they were somehow making a minute of silence for Quinn.

It felt like it; like they had lost hope as soon as they took a look on the fridge to find it empty.

Britt's house was… not exactly lively but obviously not uninhabited. Someone was sitting on the floor in the front door, a blond girl.

"It's Britt!" he exclaimed, parking and getting out of the car without thinking. Puck was after him, a bit slower and always carrying his gun, but obviously happy.

"Hey, Kurt, you are here too!" she said, looking happy to see them.

"Are you ok?" Kurt asked, coming to the girl and hugging her tight.

"I'm ok. Just… my family said they were going to get more food but they haven't come back yet and I'm hungry" she said, shrugging.

"When was that, Britt?" Kurt said, tensing in her arms and stepping back a little.

"Yesterday" she answered, going inside the house. It looked fine, a bit messy, but without blood at least. "I tried to cook something, but there was nothing to cook with, so Lord Tubbington went to find my mom, but he never came back. Charity went to look for him, and didn't came back either"

"So you've stayed all alone here all weekend?" Kurt asked, noticing that the kitchen looked empty of food.

"No. Just yesterday, you two are here today" she said with a smile.

"Britt, have you seen anyone else?" Puck asked, looking around and pocketing the gun he had picked up when he got out of the car.

"I saw Sam going back to his motel with Stacy and Stevie this morning" she said while going to her room and getting a bag that was obviously previously prepared. "I was trying to break into Sportscasters to steal their cocktail olives and he said that we were going to meet at your house"

"And you were prepared for us to come?" Puck said with an odd smile.

"I don't know how to get to your house, but I figured that if we were going to meet there at some point you'd come to get me" she said, shrugging.

"Yeah, we are going to go see if Sam is at the motel too now, so hop in to the car" Kurt said, smiling at the girl. He was used to her weird antics and half the time he found them tiring and the other half he found them endearing, right now he was so happy she was alive that it was one of the last ones.


	13. Part XII

**Part XII**

* * *

><p>They went out of the house with Britt leading happily the way.<p>

"Do you think she is…?" Puck asked when they were out of ear range.

"She doesn't look crazier than normal" he said, looking at the girl who was not getting inside the car.

"She did say she was hungry" the mohawked boy reminded him with a stare.

"So would I be if I hadn't eaten all weekend, Puck. Let's give her the benefits of doubt until she starts behaving strange, please?" Kurt asked, looking tired. "I really need to think that ours friends and family might be alive and well, you know"

"So do I, but I don't want us to end up dead too" Puck said morosely.

"I know" muttered Kurt before going to the car, opening the door, and closing the matter with it.

* * *

><p>Sam's motel was a really run down place near the Waffle House. His family still had money troubles but at least his father had got a job and managed to keep paying the motel room without having to pawn the rest of their stuff. So, as long as it was cheaper, they were going to keep living there for a while.<p>

They parked the car next to a truck and got out of it, guns in their hands just in case.

"Sam?" Puck called from outside his room, pounding on the door.

"Puck?" cried a voice from the inside, a broken sob.

Puck tried turning the knob but it didn't open, so he started pounding again a little stronger.

"Sam, open the door" he asked.

"Puck… no. Don't come inside" Sam cried again. Puck tried the door again "No, really. Stay away from here"

"What's going on, dude? You are freaking us out, out here" Puckerman looked at Kurt with a miserable face, fearing the worst.

"Something was wrong with Stevie, he… I…" sobbed the voice inside the room and Kurt just couldn't stand it anymore. He made a motion with his hand and a foot and they tried to open the door kicking it together on the count of three.

After a few tries they made it, even if Sam screamed inside for them to stop.

The inside of that motel room was awful and Kurt was too shocked to be freaking out right now, or he would have. Totally. He certainly started crying as soon as he could understand the scene he had in front of him.

Sam was sitting on a corner, blood on his hands, face and clothes although the tears had cleaned his cheeks. He was sobbing uncontrollably and crying out as If he was in pain. He looked as if he was in pain.

In his arms was Stevie; bloodied and wounded, with his neck bent in a really odd angle. Sam was caressing his hair, as if the kid was just asleep.

Dangling from one of the beds was Stacy; with bit marks all over, the floor under her was a mess of skin, blood and guts.

A puddle of blood had formed around the kids.

Puck took a couple steps back before losing his breakfast on the sidewalk but Kurt just couldn't away from the look of despair in Sam's eyes as he cried looking at his hands.

Kurt took a deep breath outside the room, where the air was still fresh and didn't smell of coagulated blood, and started taking a few steps to where Sam was bawling his eyes out.

"I was tired- I just fell asleep for a while! I was going to bring them something to eat in a bit, I just needed to rest a bit cause I had been looking for them all night and I was just so relieved to find them alive that I just sat down on the bed and I fell asleep. I don't know how long, but it I don't think it was long enough for this to happen" the boy cried on the floor. Kurt took him in his arms and cried a little with him when Sam clung to them tightly. "They were hungry. They said they were really hungry. They fell asleep in bed hugging each other. When I woke up… God, when I woke up Stacie was dead already. Stevie ate her; he was eating from her when I woke up. I tried to stop him. I threw him away, but he just stood back up and went back to try to… I kept trying to hold him back until I just couldn't resist. I threw him to the wall so hard. God, I could hear his little bones cracking. But he came back up time after time, until his neck broke… My little brother, my little sister... God, why did this happen, Kurt?"

"I don't know, Sam, I don't know" he answered, almost sure that the blond boy in his arms wouldn't even hear his words in the state he was. He just rubbed his back and willed him to calm down, whispering words and he helped him let go of the kid, stand up and walk outside.


	14. Part XIII

**Part XIII**

* * *

><p>Somehow Puck managed to find the nerves to wrap the little bodies on blankets and duvets and get them outside, on a couple of snow-made tombs. Kurt really couldn't be bothered because, even if he loved those kids to pieces, he had an alive, if broken down, Sam in his arms that just couldn't seem to find peace. That was a bit more important right now.<p>

The boy wouldn't let go even after half an hour had passed and his siblings were under a few feet of ice besides the road, under some threes. He just kept crying and sobbing until his words ran out and he fell carelessly to Kurt's arms.

After a while Britney got out of the car and hugged him too, saying "Sammy" time and time again until he stood up and together they managed to get him in the back seat of the car.

Kurt and Puck took the front seats in silence, but exchanged a glance that showed how much pain they were going through at that moment. Second hand pain, but pain anyway. There was just no way to stay calm while one of their friends, of their family, was so broken. He might be alive, but he wasn't fine at all and there was no saying if he'd ever be.

The drive home wasn't long, just about ten minutes, but it seemed endless between the softs 'Sammy' that Britt was whispering and Puck looking at him as if he was waiting for him to break down too. He wanted to, he really did, but now wasn't the time or the place.

And he was sure the other boy must be on a verge of it too, if his white knuckles were any indication.

Finn and Rachel weren't there yet, so Kurt parked near to the house and got down to help Sam out. A hand on his forearm stopped him in his tracks and he looked curiously at Puck.

"You go inside and wash your face or something, I'll take care of Sam" he said, calmly. "Maybe you could prepare him a shower while you are at it"

Kurt, in a daze, nodded and did as was told. He opened the door and gave a slight nod to Leroy and Hiram who seemed really worried as soon as they saw him, but he paid it no mind as he moved to get things ready for a shower.

Inside the bathroom he finally noticed the reason Puck was staring at him so much and why Rachel's dad looked so concerned. There was blood on his face, probably the blood that Sam once had on his hands and clothes that had smeared while he tried to keep him together. There was blood on his face and clothes, the blood of children, of kids that he had babysat a couple dozen times while Sam was working, of kids that called him uncle Kurt and that asked him to braid hair or play with cars. It was the blood of kids that shouldn't be dead.

In the mirror he saw the way his skin lost color and how green it turned, but he didn't really processed what was happening until he was throwing up on the toilet.

It was the knock on the door that woke him up from his trance. He washed his mouth and flushed the toilet before opening it.

Puck was on the other side, carrying an empty looking Sam on his arms. Kurt was immediately thrown to action when the blond man was on his feet. The mohawked boy kept him standing while Kurt started taking off his clothes, as the poor guy was in such a state of shock that couldn't do anything besides crying.

No one said a word, but they both understood what was needed without saying anything.

Carefully they helped Sam under the spray and washed his hair carefully, letting the foam clean his blond hair off his sibling's blood. They focused just on Sam, working quickly but softly to remove any possible drop of blood from his body, his hands and under his nails.

Kurt hugged Sam to his chest when Puck got out of the shower, wrapping a towel around the Sam's hips and helped him out of the bathtub.

Puck made a face, asking if he was going with him, and Kurt shook his head as a no.

When both friends were out of the bathroom and the door closed behind them with a click, Kurt felt his knees give up and fell to the floor under the shower spray. He knew the water was going to go cold at some point, but right now he didn't care. He couldn't think in anything but the red that went down the drain as the water washed the blood from his clothes.


	15. Part XIV

**Part XIV**

* * *

><p>He didn't know how long he stayed sitting under the water. He thought he had heard the door open and close but he just didn't find the will to react to it. It seemed like his clothes had absorbed all the blood they just could and just wouldn't wash out. Every time he moved some new piece of cloth was revealed and a new trail of red went down the drain.<p>

He couldn't take his eyes out of it.

Maybe that was why he was so startled when a hand lifted his chin.

Hazel eyes were looking at him with worry and with his own despair reflected there. Puck got into the bath with him and, just as he did that time at Mercedes' house, he hugged him without saying a word.

Kurt felt his eyes start to sting and get blurry, telltale signals of the sobs that he was trying so hard to keep inside. He didn't want to break down, he really didn't, he felt that if he gave in to it he would just lose himself in grief and lose hope.

He couldn't lose hope after just a day. It had only been a day. It was too soon.

The hands on his back moved strongly, anchoring him, helping him breathe deeply. Soon the same hands were helping him stand up and started removing his clothes.

"This doesn't mean anything, ok, just like we did with Sam" Puck said, more to his own benefit than Kurt's because the boy seemed too far in his own mind to care for it. "We need to get you out of these wet clothes and clean the blood from your skin"

"You are way worse than me, Puck" Kurt said, noticing for the first time that the trail of blood that run from his clothes was nothing compared to the way Puck's clothes tinted the water.

"I know, but I need to take care of you before I clean up. You are scaring me a little" he said, looking at him in the eyes as he unbuttoned his shirt. It was completely ruined. There was no possible way of cleaning all that blood off it.

"It's ok. I'm not going to break down" Kurt said, straightening his back and standing tall when he was finally naked.

"That's what worries me the most. This shit we are going through is really fucked up, and I know I broke down enough when I was by myself, but I see you here, repressing all this stuff and that isn't cool, man. You are scared for your dad too and you came back to Lima only to find it gone to hell. You are entitled to some angst, Kurt. You are strong, but you should be able to relax and be vulnerable too" Puck said, hugging him again.

This time the different level of intimacy was what did it.

To feel Puck's warm hands on his skin, the rough stubble in cheeks against his neck, and the way the man was hugging him as if he was a really close friend, were enough to make the tears slide down his cheeks mixing with the water.

His sobs run through his chest like spasms and he just couldn't care. Kurt felt his knees give up under him, but Puck kept him up, tight against his chest.

"I'm just so scared. My dad is the only real blood-family I have left; he is the only one I have left. I can't lose him too. It was bad enough with his heart attack, now I don't even know where he is, if he is ok, if he is alive. I don't want to be left alone, Puck"

Puck didn't say a word. He just held him tightly until he was finally able to breathe normally again, his hands once again anchoring him to reality.

When Kurt finally calmed down a little, even if he was still teary and really tired, the mohawked boy helped him stand up until he regained his strength. Silently Puck got a sponge and put it in Kurt's hands while he formed foam on his hands and gently washed Kurt's hair.

He was completely naked, his front to the wall, when Puck broke the silence that had descended between them.

"I know you want your dad back and it's not the same but… you are not alone, ok? We make a great team, Kurt, and we are friends so… as long as you need me, I have your back. You are not alone" he said, letting one of his hands massage his shoulders gently.

"Thanks, Puck" Kurt said with a smile that the other boy felt in his voice more than he could see it. "You are not alone either, you know? We do make a great team, so… you have my back and I'll have yours. We'll find our families"

"Yes, we will".


	16. Part XV

**Part XV**

* * *

><p>They burned their clothes on the backyard, on a small hole that Puck dug on the snow to get to solid ground. The mohawked boy had said that doing so could be like a ritual, a purifying act to mark the point where their lives got screwed up. There was no way things would be the same after what they had just witnessed and they needed to cleanse themselves from it in any possible way.<p>

They burned all the wet clothes they found in the bathroom, including Sam's. The white smoke that rose from them mixed defiantly with the black smoke of the houses on fire around the city.

Puck was currently throwing his Dior shirt into the pyre when Kurt finally spoke up.

"We should check the hospitals. Maybe they got injured and tried to get help there"

"I went there on Saturday night. It was too creepy and I came back a bit spooked, really" he confided, looking sheepish. "It's a good idea, but I'm not going there alone, we need as much light as we can and people. Both hospitals are way bigger than a house. There's no way to check all of them if we just go in pairs"

"I was thinking we could try going in groups of fours. We could check in Lima Memorial while Rachel and Finn check St Rita" Kurt said, watching his precious shirt burn to ashes and tried to see his memories burning with it. "Hiram and Leroy could go with one of us each, and maybe we could see if Lauren and Brittany are up to it"

"Dunno man, I'd like to have Lauren, Britt and Sam to rest for a bit. They are in no condition to go outside and try to find someone. I think they'll freak out if they find someone dead"

"As if we wouldn't" Kurt snapped.

"Yeah, we would, but so far we haven't killed anyone. They are dealing with different stuff than us. And Britt is too… innocent to have to kill someone; I don't think I'd be able to live with myself if she has to do it" Puck answered, with a patience he didn't know he had.

"I know, I'm just irritable"

"It's ok, Kurt"

"We should wait until Rachel and Finn come back; maybe they found someone who could go with us" Kurt said, looking around the backyard. It was barely noon, but the sun was completely covered by the clouds and the smoke, so even if it was clearer than at night it wasn't nearly as bright as it should have been.

"You keep this fire up; I'll take some of my clothes to Sam" Puck said, handing him the stick that he had been using to move the clothes around to keep the fire alive.

When the door closed behind the mohawked teen Kurt realized that, for the first time since he got back to Lima and found Finn, he was alone. And suddenly all was ten times scarier.

The rustle of leaves in the trees was strange because there was no wind around, the howl of a dog far away was creepy because it seemed the animals had fled the place faster than the people could and… maybe none of that was real, maybe that was his head making up stuff, but he couldn't be sure of anything right now. He felt unsafe. He really hadn't felt that way since that time Karofsky had been in the closet.

And he really wished he had his gun with him, even if just to know that he had a way to protect himself if something happened.

He had never liked weapons before he felt a bit like Rachel, guns were dangerous and most of the times they were used against you before you could even aim it, but he had learnt to use them mostly to be able to go hunting with his father when he was a kid. He had a decent aim, but he didn't like it. He really didn't like their new imposed rule of shooting anything that moved weird first, rather than asking, but it was a necessity and he understood that. He understood it even more now, alone and scared in the backyard, even when he knew that there were people in the house who would help him if he really needed help. He was scared anyway and he really wished he had his gun.


	17. Part XVI

**Part XVI**

* * *

><p>Rachel came back with Finn a couple of minutes after her parents had cleaned up the table from lunch. Britt had something to eat when she got there, but she was still a bit famished, and so was Lauren who had told them she hadn't eaten anything while she was hiding. Sam was still sleeping but it was a consensus that they wouldn't press him to eat anything, because what he really needed now was rest.<p>

So, when the car pulled into the driveway everyone was more or less free to go and receive them as the only one who was kind of busy was Lauren who was washing the dishes.

Finn was the first who came out of the car and quickly motioned to Puck to help him. Kurt didn't waste time and soon was on the other door, helping Rachel out. Inside he could see how Mike and Tina were huddled up, curled on each other, while Santana seemed to be cradling her arm.

"What happened?" he asked the girl, while opening up the door for Mike and Tina to go out.

"It was awful. We couldn't find Artie, but his wheelchair was there… and there was a lot of blood. Tina and Mike were together, hiding in Mike's basement and Santana… I think she has a dislocated shoulder, she said she fought with one of those things you saw. She had a shotgun and killed it, but it wasn't in the house when she woke up. Kurt, it was awful" the girl said, closing one of her hands over his. "Did you found anyone?"

"Quinn's house was empty, completely open; but we found Britt, and Sam. Britt said her family had gone to get food yesterday and didn't come back, and Sam… he found his siblings, but Stevie was the same as Lauren's mom. He had to kill him, after he ate Stacy" he said, cringing at the memories.

"Oh my God!" the girl exclaimed, distressed. "How is he?"

"In a really bad state, he is sleeping now, but he is in a deep shock" Kurt said, trying to keep the images at bay.

He opened the door and helped Tina to her feet. She didn't look so good, that with the way her knees looked as if she had fallen to the ground a couple times. Mike had a black eye, as if he had been fighting with someone twice his weight.

"Are you guys ok?" he asked, when he saw Tina limp a little.

"Nothing some ice and alcohol won't fix" she said, with a glimpse of a smile that didn't really reach her eyes.

"I'm afraid we're a bit lacking in the ice department, but Rachel's dads are amazing with the first aid kit" he said while closing the car's door.

He went to the other side of the car in silence, looking at his stepbrother and Puck who were trying to evaluate the damage on Santana's shoulder. The girl was still cradling her arm and looking at the guys in fear as if they were about to hit her, but it seemed that her attitude wasn't completely gone. Kurt took that as a good sign.

"Can you fix it or not, Puckerman?" the girl said through clenched teeth.

"You have to take off your jacket and shirt so we can see if it's fixable or not, Santana, don't be a bitch" Puck said, trying to reach for her zipper.

"Geez, Puckerman, you should be lucky I can't hit you. I don't get naked so easily now, not with men at least" she said with a smirk.

"You either help me or you are doing this by yourself" Puck said, standing tall and looking her with a sneer. Kurt felt like snickering but tried to keep it down. The girl stood up and let the guys help her take off her jacket, all the time trying to avoid moving her left arm and hissing when it was completely necessary for her to do so.

"Fuck, Santana, how did this happen?" Puck said as he looked at the swelling on her shoulder.

"One of those creepers grabbed my arm before I could shoot him" she said, moving the hand of her good arm as if it was nothing.

"Did you see what it looked like?" Kurt asked.

"Like Mr. Smithson, my neighbor. That is if Mr. Smithson hadn't showered in days, had those shiny cat eyes and a cannibalism kink he shared with his wife. The guy was missing skin, lots of it. It was disgusting" the girl said, looking possibly grossed out and tired of everything.

"Rachel said you killed him" Kurt commented while looking at the way Puck turned the girl's arm to bend over her stomach before turning it outwards slowly.

"I shot him, I don't know if I killed him but I don't think I did because he was able to escape" the girl said, obviously trying to focus on Kurt's voice more than the motions made by Puck.

"Where did you shoot him?" Puck asked.

"In his freaking side, close enough to leave a HOLE- Mother fucker!" the girl exclaimed when Puck finally the shoulder finally popped back into the joint. He rotated the arm back so that it was resting against her stomach and smirked.

"At least I never fucked yours, Santana" he said with a laugh. "Come inside; let's try to find some ibuprofen and something you can use as a sling"


	18. Texts from Blaine and Part XVII

**You've got 4 new texts messages from Blaine A.:**

* * *

><p>Message 1, sent at 01:34 am<p>

_Kurt, what happened to your family? Is your dad alright?_

Message 2, sent at 06:48 am

_Please answer me. I'm getting worried. I love you._

Message 3, sent at 08:15 am

_My phone is going to die soon, if you need anything send me a text message or leave a voice mail._

Message 4, sent at 01:04 pm

_Everyone is going back to their homes. I'll go to Marion and see if my family is alright. I love you._

* * *

><p><strong>Part XVII<strong>

* * *

><p>Hiram and Leroy were fast on their feet cleaning wounds and bandaging ankles, while Puck made sure that everyone had some painkillers. Kurt realized that he didn't feel as bad as he did before about robbing that pharmacy, not if the things they took were going to be used so soon and in such quantity. Britt had assigned herself as Santana's nurse as soon as the girl walked into the house, tying the scarf that Puck gave her as a sling and making sure she had everything she'd ever possibly need in her life. It was silly and embarrassingly cute.<p>

Kurt decided to cook for his friends because everyone else was busy and soon everyone was feed and as happy as they could be given all this crazy going on around them.

They filled each other on their stories, on their worries and their plans for the hospitals. The groups had been easily made, Puck, Kurt, Hiram, and Tina in one car, Finn, Rachel, Leroy and Mike in the other. Lauren was staying home taking care of the wounded and defenseless, she had said when asked. Sam was still sleeping but everyone had agreed to to let him sleep for as long as he needed, Santana's shoulder was still too sensitive and fragile to be really useful in a fight (if it got to that) and Britt decided that she would be the nurse and nurses don't fight.

"So, you guys are going to St Rita" Finn said, pointing Kurt and his group, "and we go to Lima memorial. And whenever we finish there we go help you with St Rita?"

"I think that would be a good idea, St Rita it's at least two times the size of Lima Memorial" Hiram said, looking a bit worried. "We could park near the entrance and honk when we get there, so you can tell us what you've found or where to look at"

"I think we should only be there as long as there is day light. Things are scary enough without it; those halls will be horrible without a continuous source of light" Rachel said, looking at the wrist watch. "We should set a time. Its 1 pm now, maybe we should meet at St Rita around 4 and keep looking there until the sun sets"

They got into the cars quickly, only stopping to get guns and flashlights for everyone, with Kurt and Puck giving everyone a fast lesson on how to recharge them and how to aim. For a minute Kurt actually wondered where it was the Puck had learnt all he knew about weapons, but ended filling that doubt under the list of 'Thing Puck does and knows because he is a 'badass''.

They got into the car with Hiram and Tina in the back seats, and Puck riding shotgun, with a real shotgun in his arms.

The streets were as empty as ever, with snow covering tracks, driveways and sometimes hiding the holes and bumps on the streets. Maybe it was because Kurt was driving and because of that he had to be more careful in watching the roads, but he was the first to realize that there was something different around the streets near the river.

"Did you guys notice? There's less blood around these streets" he said, pointing to the road that traveled along the Ottawa River.

"Was it like that everywhere?" Hiram asked, as he was one of the few that had stayed home most of that day.

"I don't really know, Finn crossed the river near Industry Park, so I don't think there was enough people to actually bleed around" Tina said, looking a bit pale.

"It was the same near Lauren's house, and we crossed through Central Ave when we went to get Quinn, it was more or less the same" Kurt said, turning left on Market St. and wondering in his mind where could have all the people gone to.

"Maybe the creepers don't like water" Puck suggested, looking out the window and keeping an eye on the roads.

"That would be useful" Kurt commented. He couldn't help but feel that maybe the boy was right because, as closer to Lima's downtown they got, the more blood and bits they could see on the streets.

They drove in silence the rest of the way, at least until Puck suggested they entered the building from the ER rather than the main entrance because it was the most logical thing for someone injured to do.

Kurt didn't even bother parking on a designed spot and simply killed the engine with the car across them, the easiest way to get out of there if they actually had something on their tails later on.

The Access Hall in the ER had a lot of glass. Correction, used to have a lot of glass, because now most of it lay smashed at their feet.

They walked inside in silence, trying to listen everywhere for at least sound of life in the interior of the building. At least knowing that someone else was alive was an achievement by then, it gave them hope that maybe their families could be alive somewhere else.

They went to the right, past the waiting rooms and the patient registration stalls. Until then the sunlight from the outside was a big help, they didn't even notice that the building didn't have electric power when the windows were so big that they could light up the room with daylight, but as closer they got to the actual ER, as farther inside the building they got, the light outside started to become a memory more than a fact.

Kurt turned on his flashlight with a sigh.

"I guess you were right about coming during the day, but it doesn't seem like it will help here" he said to Puck, looking frustrated.


	19. Part XVIII

**Part XVIII**

* * *

><p>Ok, Kurt was ready to admit that he was never going to go to this Hospital ever again; he could easily go to Lima Memorial, even if it was smaller and didn't have as much technology as this one did. He wasn't going to put a feet inside this hospital ever again.<p>

If the smashed windows and the overturned furniture weren't enough, the closer they got to the inside of the building the more blood they found and the more crept out he got. By then they couldn't even see if they weren't using their flashlights and everywhere they looked at they had to double check because sometimes the light got a small reflecting surface and he couldn't help imagining that one of those creatures/zombified neighbors must have been hiding ready to get them.

So far they hadn't encountered anything really scary, besides blood, so his fears were a bit unfounded, but he couldn't help to get closer to Puck and grip tighter his gun. The boy hadn't said anything about it; he even got closer to Kurt until their shoulders touched, so at least he wasn't being mocked because of his fears.

What did happen, anyway, is that the halls got darker and the attention boxes looked ridiculously scary. They started calling for people, the classic "is anyone there?" and hoped that whatever answered them wasn't crazy and trying to eat people.

"Kurt, look at that" Puck said after they turned a corner with Hiram and Tina behind them but not that close. On the floor, obvious over the white marble-like ceramics, was a trail of blood that seemed to go on endlessly down the corridor to one of the boxes.

"Oh my God" Kurt whispered.

A small fleshy tube, like a gut, like a stretched intestine, was dangling from one of the vents and falling on the floor and making a bloody path that got lost down the corner. The sight was awful in itself, but it wasn't much different from the chunks of coagulated blood and skin they could find on the roads. What really made this different and nasty was the way that the long tendril was throbbing, pulsing, beating, like a vein, alive.

No one really wanted to know what was waiting for them on the other end of that path, if it ever ended, but they all knew that that bloody thing held almost as many answers as it held questions, and right then it was the more clear inkling they had to understanding what had happened and where were their families and friends.

They followed the trail, flashlights and guns at the ready, walking slowly and in silence. The only sounds they could really hear was the blood rushing in their veins, but even that kept them on their toes because, as hypnotic the steady rhythm was, they couldn't be completely sure if the pulse they heard beating on their ears was actually their own or if it really came from that tendril on the floor.

The hallway was dark, absolutely no light from any other source than their lights. The glass tubes smashed on the floor sometimes gave them little reflections that had them doubting where their lights had gone, but they managed to keep sane enough to keep walking.

The floor got bloodier by the second, with smears and splashes and Kurt getting closer and closer to Puck every time the thing throbbed. There was no way to really feel safe when you were waiting for someone to jump you all the time.

"Maybe we should go back" Hiram said in a whisper.

"No" the teens answered, just as quietly "We need to know what is this thing, and if it's related in any way to people vanishing from the city"

The trail had them even closer to the buildings core than they thought at first, not even realizing when they started to go stairs down to the place where the labs took residence. There were more closed doors here than in the upper floors, but at least it seemed that the emergency lights still worked here. The hallways had a red tone lighting their walls, making it so much easier to look around them.

From behind a counter Kurt could see something big move and tried to get Puck's attention to it without moving too much. His heart beating fast on his ears as he kept contact with whatever that thing was. They didn't know if it would attack on sight, whether it was one of those crazy people or not, so it was better to just keep looking at it instead of waiting for it to look at them first.

Puck looked at him; worry clear on his face, before following the path Kurt's eyes had taken. He motioned to his flashlight and pointed discreetly to Hummel's gun.

Tina and Hiram didn't waste a moment trying to figure out what was happening and just covered their ears when they saw the way Kurt was taking of the safe in his gun.

In a few seconds Puck had turned on his flashlight in the direction of that thing and Kurt had waited no time in pulling the trigger.

He didn't really need a second opinion on his target when he saw the way the creature's eyes had shone when they caught the light.

He had a decent aim and his target was quite near, he had a gun with a big caliber and he knew how to deal with the gun's kick. He didn't miss.

The creature's head exploded almost at the same time as the sound of the gun going off finally permeated their brains.


	20. Part XIX

**Part XIX**

* * *

><p>Puck whistled in appreciation.<p>

"Is it dead?" Tina asked, not even wanting to open her eyes.

"I think it's as dead as it can be" Hiram answered, a bit too loud, probably because he was a bit deaf from being so close to the explosion.

"Damn, Kurt, you have one hell of an aim. Didn't think you had it in you" Puck said, without turning off his flashlight and rounding the counter, with Kurt close on his back.

There was blood on the wall where the burst from the creature's head had ended, and there was something that was currently sliding down and which might have been brains… though Kurt didn't really want to think about it.

He made himself look, mostly because he knew that whatever this was he'd have to get used to it. There was no turning back now that he had actually killed one.

The thing on the ground looked pretty much human, just like Santana said, like a common neighbor with a cannibal kink. It was a woman, if the clothes and shape were any indication, a bit on the big side and its skin looked pretty bad. She smelled like decay and blood.

It was the same acrid smell they had felt at Mercedes' house.

"Is it someone we know?" Tina asked, still on the other side of the counter. Kurt shook his head as a no and shrugged.

"I know her" Puck said, and for the first time Kurt took his eyes from the body on the floor to look at his partner. He looked shaken. "It's Lauren's mom"

"Wasn't she dead?" Kurt asked, surprised, keeping his eyes off the floor where the woman was bleeding and where the remains of muscle and fat were so obviously present, still attached to half the face. He knew it was there, he didn't really want to see it.

Hearing it spasm with the last bits of blood and electric impulses in the body was enough.

"That's what Lauren said, and really, if she said she broke her neck I completely believe her, that girl can open a watermelon with her hands" Puck said, shrugging. "I wonder what she was doing here"

"I wonder what she was doing alive, really" Kurt said, looking at him as if he were crazy.

"Dude, things are weird. She could be a zombie for all we know" Puck answered.

"That actually kind of fits with what is happening doesn't it?" Tina said from the other side. "Can you please come back here? You are making me nervous being all the way there"

"Zombies you say?" Puck asked, biting his lower lip. "Assuming they are real… we might be in a real problem, you know?"

"You mean, besides the possibility of all of us dying or being eaten?" Kurt asked with his bitch face at the ready.

"Well… Lauren's mom was eating her husband, and she bit Lauren before she killed her… and we all know what happens to people when they get bitten by zombies" he explained, looking really stricken.

"So you are saying…"

"That she is infected" Kurt supplied when he realized that Puck wasn't going to be able to keep talking.

"But… that happened on Saturday, it's Monday and she wasn't showing any kind of sign that she might be one of them, has she?" Tina asked, looking worried.

"Besides being really, really hungry? Well… she has always been a hungry girl, and she did spend the whole weekend fastening… I'm not sure if that's a sign" Hiram answered, motioning them to continue walking past the woman on the floor and pointing his flashlight to the trail they had been following before.

They started walking, Tina and Hiram on the front, Kurt and Puck in the back. Under the cover of the darkness Kurt gave the mohawked boy a one armed hug and walking with him like that until the guy had calmed down a little.

"She is dangerous" he said after a while. "She is really strong, more than any of us, and if she turns into a zombie she is going to be deathly, more than the others"

"I know" Kurt said, leaning so that their heads touched.

"I'm worried about the others… we left them alone with her and… what if…?"

"We already did it, if something happens… I guess we'll find out when we come back" he said, shrugging. "We can't worry about that now, if there are any others like Lauren's mom we must be careful, we can't be distracted"

"I know… I'm sorry, it's just… she is my friend… I don't want to lose her"

"It's ok, but we have to hurry for now. I'll be there if you need me"

"I know" Puck said, standing tall again. "Thank you"


	21. Part XX

**Part XX**

* * *

><p>They kept following the bloody trail down the hallways until the blood on the floor covered all the stretch of it, their shoes getting stickier on the linoleum with each step they took. The sound of the beating pulse that the thing had was only getting stronger, beating so hard that they could see the ripples in the blood below them.<p>

Suddenly it came to a stop. The intestine-like thing they had been following went out of sight under a closed door.

Kurt and Puck tried to pick the door, thinking that if it was a pin-tumbler or a wafer-tumbler they'd be able to do it with one of Tina's hairpins or try to move the latch with Kurt's driver license.

"Shit, try to move the door" Puck said, pointing his flashlight to the numeric pad on the wall, that they had missed when they got closer. Kurt took the lever in his hands and used it to try and open the door a few times. It didn't even budge. "It's a fail-secure. It can only be opened from the inside if there's an electric failure. Our trail ends here" he said, shrugging. "Let's go back upstairs and clear some other floors"

They turned and went back the way they had used to go down, all the time looking around just in case they found another zombie, or whatever those things were, and trying not to get too scared with the usual double takes (shadows, reflections, etc.)

They made it back to the lobby without trouble, thought they had been on edge more than they were comfortable with, mostly because now their fears had a name and a face. Scratch that, their fears had several faces, those of their friends and family, those of the people that had disappeared and those who they were sure were dead. Nobody was completely free of turning, and everyone was fair game to the infection.

Kurt was mostly worried about how the odds of finding his family were getting thinner and thinner; how, wherever his family was, they'd have to find a way to fight for their lives because Kurt couldn't help but remember that, when he went with Finn to get his father's guns he knew immediately that they were all there. Wherever his dad and Carole were, they were defenseless.

On the other hand, there was Puck and his missing family; there were Lauren and Britt who were both terribly hungry when they found them, even if they didn't know yet if the blond was bitten. They never checked.

It was a mistake that was going to cost them all dearly if she really was infected and something happened at Puck's house while they were there.

"We should try and get supplies from the pharmacy while we are here, shouldn't we? It seems like we might as well stock on everything we could possibly need instead of having to make trips if someone gets injured" Hiram said, looking longingly to the indoor store.

"You know more about wounds than we do, maybe you and Tina should stock on that stuff while we look in the upper floors?" Puck asked, scratching his mohawk awkwardly.

"I can do it by myself, don't worry. You could use more help" Hiram said, shrugging.

"No, we don't split. We should make it a rule, we don't leave anyone alone. If something happens to you there has to be someone who can be there to protect you or run to get someone else, no matter how old you are in comparison to us" Kurt said, firmly.

"Ok, you go check out the second floor while we put everything we can think of in bags. Then you can come back and we can load them to your car" Hiram said, rolling his eyes but smiling at the kids, mostly because he knew they were right.

Puck and Kurt looked at each other and took a look outside. So far so good, it didn't seem like any hoard of zombies was going to appear while they were separated, so there wasn't really any reason not to trust them to be able to defend themselves.

They went upstairs in silence, trying to use their eyes and the little sunlight these upper floors had because there wasn't really any reason to go around overusing the batteries. Who knew when they were going to find themselves without any? All resources right now should be considered scarce, even if they could still get them in almost any store.

The second floor had as much blood as any other place they had visited until then, blood and no bodies. Kurt couldn't help but imagine now that the reason there didn't seem to be bodies around was because those zombies, or whatever they were, just took the bodies with them instead of feeding right where they were. That would explain why there weren't bones or loose parts. God. If he wasn't careful he was going to make himself sick.

Second floor was just private rooms for people who had been hospitalized, so there weren't many things around. This hallway was mostly empty of overturned furniture at least; just a couple of broken pictures that used to hang on the walls were all the things they had to dodge. No weird bottles or trays on the floor, no tubes or carts in their way. Besides the obvious dark splatters of blood on the ground and awful green walls… it wasn't that bad.

What did worry him was the way that most of the doors were open, still, but open.

Except for one in the middle that looked like someone was moving it from the inside.

Puck and Kurt took their guns and pointed in front of them before walking to the different rooms. While one of them looked inside the room, just in case someone was hiding there waiting for help, the other was still in the hallway, pointing to that moving door but still looking to where they had come from.

Kurt could feel his heart on his ears, beating strongly. He was way more scared than he was willing to admit.


	22. Part XXI

**Part XXI**

* * *

><strong><strong>

Soon enough they had cleared all the rooms until they finally got to the one they were almost avoiding. Sure, now they were certain that nothing was going to jump them on the way there, but they were scared of facing whatever it was moving the door.

"Wait" Kurt whispered as low as he could, going inside one of the empty rooms and taking a remote. Going back to the hallway he threw it at the door and held Puck's arm as they waited.

Nothing happened, but the door stopped moving.

"What were you trying to accomplish with that?" Puck whispered angrily.

"To avoid a close confrontation with something that might be able to bite us" Kurt whispered back, never taking his eyes off the door, a door which had stopped moving.

Then, slowly, a bloody hand gripped the door frame. Puck gasped and Kurt aimed sure to kill whatever it was on the other side of that hand, if it turned to be one of those zombies then he was going to shoot no matter who it was.

Gradually, the top a head appeared, weird looking eyes glancing at them before hiding again.

Puck looked at him with a weird expression, both of them trying to understand what had happened.

"Was that… a shy zombie?" Puckerman whispered, looking like he didn't know if he should freak out or laugh out loud.

"Maybe is someone who got infected" Kurt replied, shrugging. "At least we know it won't attack us before asking our names"

Together they walked closer to the room and peaked inside. The loud slam of the bathroom door closing was the only indication they had of where, whoever it was, was hiding.

"Hey, are you ok?" Puck asked while opening the curtains and letting the sun come from outside the windows. "What's your name? How old are you?"

"I'm Stanley, I'm twelve. You aren't crazy like them?" a tiny voice said from inside the bathroom.

"Like who?"

"The ones that come at night, they smell awful and they growl" the voice explained. By then Kurt could tell that it belonged to a little boy.

"No, we aren't. Did they bite you?" Puck asked, both of them dreading the answer already.

"I was… I was under surgery when people disappeared… I… They never finished it, I guess…"

"What do you mean?"

"They didn't… stitch me up… I kind of… I'm half done…" the little voice said, and Kurt felt that he was about to pass out. All those days had passed and this kid was walking around with an open surgical wound?

"We are not doctors, I don't think we can patch you up, boy" Puck said, getting closer to the door.

"I- It's ok, I guess? I haven't died yet… I don't think I will ever die…" Kurt just had to hear that to get closer to Puck and just move it closer to him and as far as possible to the bathroom door.

"How bad is your wound?" Puck asked, trying to shake Kurt's hand.

"It's pretty bad… I was getting a new kidney… and I think something bit me while I was under the anesthesia" the boy said, and that was enough to finally make Puck do what Kurt was asking him to and get behind the bed, the closer they could to the door without bolting out of the room. "Do you… maybe… Do you have anything to eat? The nurses disappeared too and I haven't been able to get anything to eat since Friday morning. And I'm afraid to go down because of the crazy ones"

Puck just stared at him with something like despair in his eyes. They both understood now that, whatever had happened to that kid, he was doomed to become one of the zombies out there. There was no other reason to explain why he hadn't died yet while having a surgical wound like that. At the same time, though, it was a great way to get some answers. This kid seemed to have more contact with those things than they had.

"How it is that the… crazy ones… haven't done anything to you yet?" Kurt asked, using the same words the kid had used.

"I leave the door closed at night; usually if they can't see you they leave you alone… and light kinda blinds them, that's why they don't go out during the day… At least I think so"

"Why did you have your windows covered, then?" Puck asked, fearing the answer.

"The light was hurting my eyes too. The sun is getting brighter each day"

"Can you wait for us a little?" Kurt said, before pulling Puck with him to the hallway.

They both stood there for a couple of minutes, looking at each other and the room behind them. Kurt didn't exactly know what was going on in Puck's head, but he was fairly sure that the kid wasn't going to get out of that room as he should. He was infected, way more than Lauren must have been when they found her, and that kid was going to be dangerous soon if the way Stevie had eaten his sister was any indication.

"We have to do something about him" Kurt said, even if he didn't have a clue on what they could possibly do.


	23. Part XXII

**Part XXII**

* * *

><p>"And what do you propose we do?" Puck asked, looking at him as if he was crazy. "Maybe we can take him with us and keep feeding him until we know for sure it's not going to eat us in our sleep"<p>

"No, I mean, we can't leave him running around like that… infected" Kurt said, because they were on the same page here, even if they were both a bit scared about actually doing what they should.

"It's just a kid… I don't think I can kill him" Puck said, looking uncomfortable. "I don't even know how you got the guts to kill Lauren's mom and she was already lost… I can't kill a kid to whom I just had a conversation with"

"That boy is turning, it's only a matter of time until he is really dangerous" Kurt said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I won't kill a kid. I'm not that gone yet to be able to do it and live with myself later"

"I don't think I can't either… but we can't have him going around the city infecting others… I dunno…"

"Maybe we can lock him in there. If he can't get out he isn't going to be a danger, right?" Puck insisted. "I just don't want to have to kill him"

"I'll go to the counter and search for the key, but if he has been locking himself there to protect himself, I think it's safe to say that he has it" Kurt said, shrugging. Sure enough, there wasn't any key to any room in the floor. He came back with his hands empty and watched the way that Puck just seemed to be even more defeated than before.

"I don't want to kill him… I don't want to have to kill the infected ones" he said, looking at Kurt in anguish.

"This isn't about the kid, is it? This is about Lauren" Kurt said, looking serious.

"Of course it is. If we have to kill this kid… if he really needs to be killed because he was bitten, then we'll have to kill her at some point… she is my best friend. I can't do that" Puck said, letting his arms drop to his side. Kurt couldn't do anything but go there and hug him close, before pressing a kiss to his forehead.

"Look, we'll take care of what is going to happen to her later. Right now we need to figure out what are we doing with the kid before we do anything else"

"Close the door, I'll go find something we can use to jam it" Puck said before taking a breath, straightening his shoulders, and going inside one of the other rooms to find something suitable.

Kurt took the doorknob with one hand while the other was aiming the gun in the bathroom's general direction. He closed the door softly, trying not to make any sound that could make the child realize what was happening. Soon enough Puck came with something that looked like one of those tables next to the hospital beds.

"Couldn't find anything else with the right height" he said as an excuse, before jamming it under the lever lock and taking a couple of steps back. It wasn't the best solution in any possible way, but he just couldn't find anything else he could carry fast enough.

"Guys… are you coming back?" a scared voice said after a few minutes. Both Puck and Kurt felt guilt for the first time when they heard the kid again.

But it was the only way, they understood that, possibly more than Hiram and Tina would have if they had been there. Until now the others had been subjected to an enemy that they had heard of but that remained unseen, Puck and Kurt had seen it instead, twice if you counted Lauren's mom. They had seen the way those crazy eyes searched around looking for something else to eat, and the way the skin seem to peel in those places that had been bitten or wounded. They had seen the blood clinging to the woman downstairs and the way that, even if she was obviously human, you just couldn't seem to relate them to anything but monsters.

They knew fear in a way that Tina and Hiram didn't know yet, and that gave them the strength to leave that child there, locked away; locked until the disease took over.

"Guys… where are you, are you coming back? Guys?" said the kid voice, sounding even more scared by the minute.

Puck grabbed his hand, and Kurt took it, squeezing hard.

"I can't open the door… guys? Help me! I can't open the door! HEY! GUYS! Don't leave me here!" Stanley screamed from inside the room.

Kurt took a step back and tried to get Puck to follow him. He just couldn't stay there and listen to the anguished cries of the kid. He pulled the hand until the other man gave up and started walking behind him, never losing sight of the way the door shook as the kid tried to open it.

"Don't leave me here alone! Please! I'm hungry! I'm going to die here! Please! Guys, please!" Stanley sobbed in his room, and the sounds carried down the hallways freezing Kurt's heart.

He felt like crying. He couldn't believe he was actually doing that, that he was letting a kid locked when it seemed that the city was the most dangerous place in the world right now. But he had to; he knew that there was no other way if killing him wasn't an option.

He looked at Puck and the way the man was blinking tears away, like he knew it wasn't the time to break down, and realized that he just couldn't break down either. Not now. Not while Puck was so vulnerable. It was going to have to wait.


	24. Part XXIII

**Part XXIII**

* * *

><p>A growl stopped them when they were just about to turn the corner that took them to the stairs. They spun fast to look at the place where it had come from; knowing that the only thing in that direction was the room where Stanley was currently locked. The door had been shaking even more than before, with a lot more strength that a few seconds ago, and the sobs had stopped while the kid screamed in rage.<p>

Now… there was only silence and that awful growl from behind the door.

Kurt aimed the gun to the hallway, instinct winning over the worry about what might have happened to Stanley.

The door shook one last time before the table that was jamming it gave away under the force of whatever that was pushing it. A second later a kid wearing a hospital robe pushed the door open with a shove.

It was the first time they saw Stanley, and they really wished that they had never seen him.

Stanley was a normal kid, a bit shorter than the average with a hair that looked like it could have been dirty blond when it wasn't matted with blood. His eyes had that weird crazy yellow tint that all the zombies they had met until then had had, and his mouth was open showing more teeth than they felt comfortable with. His skin was awfully pale and his hospital robe was covered in blood, possibly his own.

It was Stanley who was growling.

And he didn't look sane at all.

The kid was walking slowly, leaving a bloody trail after him as blood appeared to be dripping down his back. His surgical wound must have been pretty serious for the amount of red that seemed to follow him.

"Stanley, dude, are you alright?" Puck asked, his voice a thin shadow of what Kurt knew, so full of fear that he instantly got even more than ready to fire.

The kid didn't really answer, but it was obvious that he wasn't alright at all. He just came closer and closer while they walked back, until the wall stopped them.

"I'm hungry" Stanley growled. "I'm really hungry"

"Puck, let's run" Kurt said, trying to get Puck's hand and shake him out of the stupor that he seemed to have fallen into.

"Ok" the boy said, but did nothing to actually move.

"Puck, let's move!" he said again, pushing him in the direction of the staircase. He barely moved. "Fuck, Puck, move your butt! We are not dying here because you are too shocked to run!"

Puck eventually listened to him, albeit reluctantly, and began to walk quickly to the stairs with Kurt. It seemed, however, that Stanley wasn't injured enough to be unable to run, as he was soon behind them screaming about his hunger and how they had left him there to die. Kurt kept pulling Puck to make him go on faster, but the boy was still a bit too shocked to do anything more than follow him, as fast as he could, but running was kind of out of question when he was too dazed to think about tripping into things.

"Puck!" he cried when the man stopped completely.

Kurt turned, ready to bit his head off for not doing as he was told, when he noticed that Stanley had caught up with them and was currently holding Puck's wrist in both his hands. The crazy look in his eyes was still there, even worse than before, and his mouth was open in what was obviously going to be a bite.

He was salivating; looking at the arm in his hands like it was the tastiest piece of meat he had ever seen.

And that was it for Kurt. That was the moment he just stopped caring that this poor kid was dying and had no idea, the moment he just didn't care about how the kid was going to famish or the way that Stanley had stayed two long nights alone in the hospital, scared about monsters that they hadn't really faced yet. He just stopped caring. How could he when he had Puck there, his friend, his partner, about to be bitten and infected. Puck was more important to him than Stanley could ever be and that was it, he wasn't going to lose Puck over a stranger.

He aimed and shot.

Three bullets, right in the face; that's all it took for the kid to go down and finally let go of Puck.

The explosions were loud enough to wake Puck out of his daze, and he turned to Kurt completely out of his mind. He had blood on his face, Stanley's blood, but it didn't matter to him. Puck was alive, that was all that mattered.

"What the hell, man! Why! How could you!" he shouted.

"I'm not losing you because of the kid. You are not getting infected, you hear me? I'm not losing you. I'd rather shot an innocent than lose you" Kurt said, swallowing when he saw the way the kid had fell on the floor, all limbs and blood. His face was completely unrecognizable because of the explosions, no trace of the cute boy he must have been before. He couldn't picture what would happen to him if Puck was bitten and he had to shoot him… "I'm not losing you"

"Kurt…"

"No, there's nothing to talk about" he said, straightening his back and looking directly to Puck's hazel eyes. "It's done… and we knew if it came to it that was the way we should have acted from the beginning"

"Kurt…"

"No, Puck, I don't want to hear it" Kurt said, turning, going back to the staircase, to Hiram and Tina, but Puck's arms stopped him. He hugged him from behind, one of his hands steady over his fast beating heart. The boy pressed his forehead to Kurt's shoulder and exhaled loudly and warm over his back, as if he had been holding his breath for the last minutes.

"Thank you"

"Let's go back" Kurt said, blinking fast to stop the tears from running down his cheeks.

"I'll talk with Lauren; when we get home I'll go and talk with her… But I need you there with me"

"I'll be there"


	25. Part XXIV

**Part XXIV**

* * *

><p>"We heard shooting! What was that? Did you found another zombie?" Tina asked as soon as they came to their line of vision. "Puck, you are covered in blood!" she exclaimed later.<p>

"There was an infected kid" Kurt said, knowing that Puck might be a little too shocked to answer anything. "He was too far gone"

"You killed him?" Tina asked in disbelief.

"There was no other way, it was him or us" Kurt said in a strong voice, or what he hoped was a strong voice because there was just no way he could say something like that without wavering, without feeling like he was about to fall into some kind of abyss.

Puck's hand on his shoulder was his only anchor in that moment; the only thing that kept him sane when all he could feel was the way everyone was judging him, even himself.

"Well… we picked everything we could possibly need and more. Should we load it into your car before we check the other floors?" Tina said, motioning to Hiram who was on the other side of the counter picking bags full of pills and bandages.

"Yeah, I guess so" Kurt said, going to help Hiram with the bags.

"Is there anything in those bags that I can use to clean up? Zombie blood isn't exactly fun" Puck said, always close behind, maybe his hand wasn't on his shoulder anymore, but he could feel his presence near him and that was enough.

After a little alcohol and gauze bath, and Puck complaining that is he kept like this he was going to end up burning all his clothes, they started to take the bags out of the store and into the back seat of the Navigator.

They were on their fifth trip, and barely out of the pharmacy, when they heard the sound of a motor and a honk outside, signaling that their friends were finally there. The group walked fast to the place where the building's windows should have been, the crunch of the glass under their feet not really registering over the shock they could feel when they saw the somber faces on their friends.

Kurt crossed the distance to the parking lot, stopping right in front of the driver seat. Finn was getting out, and enveloping him in a tight hug without even saying a word. It was a hug so tight that Kurt could feel tears on his eyes without even knowing what had happened.

"What did you find?" Hiram asked, mostly to Leroy, but it was Rachel who answered.

"Mercedes… she is…She was… gone, lost… crazed" she said in a chocked sob.

While Puck hugged Rachel tight against his chest and Mike got out of the car to take a sobbing Tina in his arms, Kurt felt his legs give in and knew, in the back of his mind, that he was falling to the floor. Finn was with him, hugging him, next to him on the ground. He patted his hair and whispered comforting words that he didn't really believe into his ear, and engulfed him in that warmth that only family could give… while that little castle he had tried to build around himself collapsed.

Mercedes couldn't be dead.

"It's ok… its better this way… she wasn't Mercedes anymore…" he could hear Mike say to Tina, and he imagined that maybe something like what happened with Lauren's mom could have happened to them too… And it didn't make it any better.

Somehow it had been better not knowing where Mercedes was than knowing she was dead.

How could she be dead?

Kurt just couldn't imagine what he was going to do now, without her crazy clothes and the way she was always willing to lend him an ear, with her loyalty and the way her eyes warmed up when she saw him. He could still remember the way she laughed and the way she belted a song like no one else could ever imagine doing.

How could he live the same way without her?

He didn't exactly miss her right now, not when the memory of her smile was so fresh in his mind, but it felt like someone had made a hole in his soul and he just couldn't… he didn't have the strength to get up, to cry, to look at Finn and know that he wasn't really as alone as he felt.

That abyss he had felt under his feet before… he could see himself about to fall now, and nothing was really keeping him up except for Finn arms, but he was dangling and he was scared.

There were tears on his eyes, but he wasn't really crying… he didn't feel like he was crying… it was just water that ran down his cheeks, but there wasn't any emotion behind them. Was there?

Was this incredible despair he felt inside an emotion?

He just couldn't believe it. It didn't feel real. It couldn't be real.

He could remember the first time he saw her, the time when she busted his car's window and the way she said that she had imagined his love for her. He could remember the way she fit in his arms that time she cried when she realized she was in love with Sam… God, what were they going to do with Sam?

He felt the warmth of another pair of arms pick him off the ground, and he knew that Finn must have been a bit at a loss of what to do with him when he was like that. He heard Rachel's sob and he knew, that the girl was going through her own hell right then and needed his brother with her. But this heat behind him, this was something he recognized and something he was comfortable with after that long night and morning, after that shower and the way they both could just keep each other up when they needed it.

Kurt knew it was Puck who was picking him up, so he didn't fight it, he went with it.

He let himself go.

He let Puck carry him to a bench just a few feet from where everyone was, and he let Puck cradle his head in his shoulder while he cried. Like the night before when they went to check Mercedes' house Puck just took him in, no questions asked and no words without meaning, he just supported him while he cried and let him breathe against his shoulder until he felt a bit calmer.

The hand on the back of his head was the only thing keeping him from losing his mind to grief.

"I'm sorry; I'm a mess right now" Kurt tried to say with a chuckle that fell as flat as he felt.

"It's ok. That's what partners are for, right? You had my back and I have yours" Puck said, shrugging as if it wasn't anything, but Kurt could see the worry in his eyes. He knew the boy cared for him and that was enough, for now, to keep him going.


	26. Texts from Burt and Part XXV

**You've got 4 new texts messages from Dad:**

* * *

><p>Message 1, sent at 00:21 am<p>

_Something weird is going on. We are going to pick Finn and leave to your granma's_

Message 2, sent at 04:12 am

_The roads are cut. Going to grandma's until later on_

Message 3, sent at 15:48 pm

_We are trapped at Celina. Wait for me at Lima. Find Finn._

Message 4, sent at 01:15 am

_I love you, son._

* * *

><p><strong>Part XXV<strong>

* * *

><p>"I know this is an awful moment, but we need to get keep looking if we want to finish looking through this hospital before nightfall" Leroy said after a while, when the violent sobs had stopped.<p>

"We can stay here if you want, wait in the car while they check the rest" Puck said, looking directly into Kurt's eyes.

"No. I don't like waiting. I'd rather be doing something instead" Kurt answered, shaking his head and standing up, straightening his back before joining the group, Puck's hand a welcomed weight on his shoulder.

"What happened to her body?" Puck asked, surprising Kurt a little. It seemed that he was always worried about the state their friends ended after the confrontations, no matter how difficult dealing with a death might be. He could remember the way he had insisted on burying Mr. Jones, and the way he had cradled Stevie and Stacy to bury them under the snow before leaving the motel. Maybe it was more than just preservation of the bodies, maybe it had something to do with religion and that was the reason he asked Rachel's dads.

"The explosion was too strong because she was too near to us, so there wasn't much of her face to be recognizable, but we tried to bury her the best we could" Leroy answered, placing a hand on the mohawked boy's shoulder. "Let's get going, ok? I don't want us to get caught in the dark"

"Can we change the teams a little? I would rather be able to protect or check up on Tina if needed than hear about important stuff later" Mike said, before they walked to the building.

"Kurt and Puck could go with us" Finn said, tugging his girlfriend to follow him.

And so they went inside, Tina, Mike and Rachel's dads were going to check the third and fourth floors, while the other four checked the fifth and sixth, were the operating rooms and the other clinical wards where supposed to be. By the time they reached the first of the floors they had picked, they were almost out of breath and cursing the day that people decided to depend on electricity for everyday stuff, or for making buildings that tall without thinking about the poor legs of those who'd climb the stairs on emergencies.

"I don't know how it was for you guys, but we met a kid that had been bitten, all zombified, before you came… and he said that it had happened while he was in surgery… so, I'd suggest we stick to each other and be really careful" Puck said, drumming his fingers on the frame of his glock.

"And aim for the head" Kurt added, morosely.

Finn and Rachel just nodded, each in their own little worlds with their own worries. It seemed that all of them had finally understood how dangerous and pressing this situation was, now more than ever, because as much as they had suffered before it seemed like they were losing people within their ranks now, and that was just too scary.

The fifth level didn't had anything too weird, if you didn't count the amount of blood on the walls and the blood stain that made him think that someone had tried to walk while pushing himself up with the wall, until his knees gave up and he fell. The amount of blood on the floor had to mean that he had bled to death there, but there was no body. He didn't want to think about why there was no body.

They passed the reception and went to some kind of dressing room, Finn and Puck checking first if there was nothing to worry about, before they moved on to some kind of waiting room where the TV and the few windows were broken.

"I remember coming here when I got my tonsils removed" Puck said, looking around. "It didn't seem so small back then, it feels confining now"

"It's because it's more oppressing now, any moment we stay here is a bit more dangerous" Rachel said, pushing them so that they kept on walking.

The doors to the operating rooms where broken, off their hinges, and with bits of cloth hanging from the glass shards that remained in the frame. Kurt pushed them aside with his boot, not risking touching anything that might hurt him. Who knew what would happen if he got blood in an open wound.

Each door they went through got them deeper into the center of the building, and so it was just a matter of minutes until they had to turn on their flashlights again because it started to get too dark to just walk around without tripping into stuff.

The change in their moods was noticeable. Kurt immediately got into his no nonsense frame of mind, gripping his gun tight in his hand and brandishing his flashlight as if it was some kind of weapon. Puck was more or less the same, thought he did spend more time looking at Kurt and worrying about his mental health than before, so he just let his hand land on the boy's shoulder while he aimed at the hallway in front of them. Finn and Rachel just clung to each other, guns and lights at the ready, but there was a look that was a mix between fear and resignation in their eyes that had Puck wanting to go back to the car, just so he could keep them from suffering anymore.

Maybe it was the way they should go about it. It was obvious that there wasn't much more they could do here, the hospital was as deserted as the city seemed to be, and whoever had been there had fled as soon as they could, or had went to another place with more food. Though Puck couldn't help but feel that there wasn't a place with more available zombie food than a place full of people unable to move on their own.

Something was a bit too weird here. Too little people for a place this big, at least they should have found more zombies but that wasn't the case at all. No, something was too weird in here, and he was starting to think that finding out what it was just wasn't worth the risk.

It was behind a closed wood door, that they managed to pick easily enough, that they found a source of light in midst of the darkness that had been surrounding them while checking operating rooms.

There was a broken window ahead, and the afternoon light was filtering through giving such a contrast in the darkness of the hallway that they couldn't even see what was on the other side of the patch of light in the floor. The only thing they knew was that, whatever it was wasn't really amicable if the growls were any indication.


	27. Part XXVI

**Part XXVI**

* * *

><p>They could see the way the eyes reflected the light from the window and how they seemed to be trying to avoid the light from their flashlights as if it could burn them. They could hear their growls and hisses, but mostly, when Puck tried to get a bit closer, he could see that they were just human, about seven of them, but humans. Sure, they looked crazed, but it was just nurses, doctors, and patients, that had the bad luck of being there in that hospital when this thing happened. They weren't guilty of anything.<p>

"They are dangerous, Puck" Kurt hissed, taking his elbow and dragging him back to darkness.

"Yeah, but they are blinded. I don't think they are going to be walking past that window anytime soon" he whispered back, shrugging a little. Truth was he was really curious about them. How did this infection, virus, whatever, worked, how it took hold of its victims and how long it took to absorb the infected completely… was there any way to neutralize it?

"It should take about thirty minutes until the sun starts setting, Noah" Rachel said, looking at her cellphone and looking completely scared. Sure, no one had signal of any kind, but at least they could work like clocks for a while.

"I think we should go back to where we came from, close the door and lock it again. I don't want to be here when they are able to cross the light" Finn said, voicing the thoughts of most of them.

Puck couldn't help but do what everyone wanted, looking back with curiosity but knowing that what he had done had been dangerous not only to himself, but to the group as a whole. Besides, he really had to start remembering that those things weren't tame, they could turn angry and vicious at any point like how it had happened with Stanley, and he didn't want to die like that. Not bitten by a lot of rotting corpses. No, someone as badass as himself, was going to die as he should: fighting.

When they went through the door he held it closed for Kurt while the guy picked the door closed, and jammed behind it some kind of metallic table from one of the operating rooms, taking care of not touching any part of the blood with his own hands but his jacket, he had had enough blood on him for the day, thank you very much.

"Seems like all the fucking furniture has wheels in here, the only thing I could get without them was this table, and if those guys decide to get out it's not going to hold for too long" he said, voicing their fears.

Having decided that they had seen enough of that floor and they really didn't want to go check what was behind the zombies, they started climbing the stairs to the last floor, but knowing what they were leaving behind they couldn't help but be almost as cautious of their backs as they were of their fronts, and that didn't help any to their heart rates.

They hurried.

They started walking faster, checking behind counters while walking instead of stopping to take a look, and not really bothering to check in every room and bathroom, just taking a look at the room was enough to know if it was empty or not. They all were empty, except for one that was closed but in which they could see the shadow of someone peeking through the blinds.

Finn made a shushing motion with one finger and they started walking towards the room in silence, always looking back, but a bit more cautious of what was going on ahead.

He immediately remembered Stanley and wondered for a while if it was going to be another kid, or someone who had been in the middle of a surgery…

Then, the blinds closed and they could hear the door locking.

Whatever it was behind the door was sane enough to know not to trust some guys with guns, maybe it was a survivor, Puck thought.

"Hey, you there, are you ok?" he asked, even if Rachel was looking at him like he was crazy.

"Who are you?" the tiny voice of a woman asked from inside the room.

"We are students; we are going around looking for survivors and stuff. Are you alright?" he asked again.

"Yeah, I guess I am"

"You don't know?"

"I'm just hungry"

Kurt took a full step back then and it was enough for him to spring into action, gripping his gun a bit more tightly and pushing himself in front of the guy, because he just didn't seem to be in any condition to fire now. Instinctively Puck knew that if it came to it Kurt would be too shocked to react to any kind of danger, after Stanley he couldn't really blame him, so it was his chance to protect him now and he wasn't going to miss it.

"I'm not one of those zombies, ok?" the voice from the inside said, as if the reaction she got was clear enough. "I just haven't eaten since Friday"

"What happened Friday, do you know? Why are all the people like that?" Rachel asked, trying to see what was behind the blinds and giving a step back after a while, shocked.

"There was this awesome smell, it was… like the best meal you've ever eaten. Salty and sweet, bitter and just a touch of acid, but so sweet and tasty… I had to put the oxygen mask on so I didn't get too hungry. I'm on a diet, you see, I'm too fat. That smell was going to screw me up if I ended eating out of schedule" the woman said.

"What about the rest of the people in the hospital?" Finn asked.

"Well, the patients, nurses and doctors started eating obscene amounts of stuff, they were always hungry. I think the kitchens and vending machines ran out of stuff around 2 am. I even heard that there was a doctor that tried to eat a patient in the middle of surgery" she said. Kurt gripped Puck's arm so tightly that the mohawked boy knew he was going to have a bruise there. "Around 4 most of them had left the building I think. I saw them walk away from my window"

"Most of them?"

"There were a few that were all zombie-like. Those stayed, they get out at night"

"Why didn't you leave?"

"I'm too weak to move, my legs can't support my fat ass" she said, with an ironic laugh.

Rachel whispered something to Finn, and the guy cringed. Puck was about to ask what it was when shooting was heard from the floors below them.

And then he realized for the first time that the half hour that Rachel said it would take for the sun to set was already over and the hospital was covered in orange and reds lines. The blood was glistening with the new light and more than any other time it seemed like things were going to get awful quickly.

A door at the end of the hallway started shaking and they aimed their guns at it without really thinking.

"Go away, run" the woman in the room said.

"What about you?"

"Just leave me here, I've survived till now and I would be a burden for you" she said, with a voice that radiated sincerity.

"What's your name?" Kurt asked.

"Lila"

"Goodbye, Lila, and good luck" he said, before grabbing Puck's arm and hurrying them to the stairs hallway.


	28. Part XXVII

**Part XXVII**

* * *

><p>"We are just going to leave her there?" Rachel asked, completely outraged.<p>

"If that's what she wants I'm not going to say otherwise. We are going to have enough trouble keeping each other alive, we don't need people we don't know to worry about too" Kurt deadpanned, and frankly Puck kind of agreed with him.

"She was sick, she could die there" the girl continued.

"If she was sick, then she is going to die in there or here with us" Kurt said, sharply. "Besides, if she really can't walk what are we going to do? Have Puck and Finn carry her around while running away?"

"She must have had anorexia, she was a stick" Rachel said. "It wouldn't have been too difficult to carry her around, as you put it"

"Well, do you want to do it? Do you really want to go down those stairs with her on your back?" Kurt said, stopping for a second to look at the girl and try to make his point. "I refuse to let us be in danger because of someone who needs intense health care that we can't give her, and who we don't even know. If it was one of your dads, ok, we would. But we don't know her at all and we don't even know if she is just hungry because of the lack of food or because she really got infected. I'm not chancing it, Rachel. I'm not chancing any of us with this" Kurt ended, looking completely serious.

The sound of the door opening just made them run without even caring about finishing the argument, as far as Puck knew it was done the minute that the danger started to get real. They hadn't even noticed that there was a closed door, they hadn't had the time to check that far, but now just wasn't the time to go wondering about it.

They had to run.

They had to dodge stuff and try not to slip with the blood on the floor.

They had to keep an eye on the front and one on the back if they didn't want something bad to happen.

They didn't even know what they were running from, but the darkness was deeper with each minute and there wasn't time to worry about it now. It was difficult enough to run when your pulse wasn't steady and the flashlights never pointed in one straight path, they didn't need doubts to trip them.

The hallways were still empty but as the stuff thrown around was more present than ever, so were the groans and hisses they could hear following them. The sound of a second set of footsteps was drowned by the sound of their hurried breath and the bounce of their feet on the linoleum.

They went down the emergency stairs, not even bothering to go back to the hallways on the fifth, they just bypassed the floor with the trapped zombies and started calling for their friends when they reached the fourth level.

From somewhere over the left they could hear Tina asking to wait, and a couple of gun shots.

… And then a cry for help.

They didn't even doubt it before they were running to wherever they could hear the sound coming from, and found their friends and the older couple hiding behind a counter, Mike and Leroy recharging their guns while Hiram and Tina tried to clear the trash that was blocking the other exit of the counter.

There were two nurses a doctor trying to reach for them, crying out in hunger and desperate.

Puck and Kurt were a bit faster on their aiming, mostly because they had a bit more of practice, and took a couple of shots to the zombies, managing to get them in the chest and jaw without harming their friends. Those made them fall long enough for Mike and Leroy to help the other guys to clear the path while Rachel helped them from the outside. Finn was with Puck and Kurt, aiming and shooting at the zombies until they were more or less sure that there weren't going to get up anytime soon.

"We need to get out of this building. Now" Leroy said, making them run towards the stairs again, Hiram and himself last, looking out just in case those things decided to get up again.

They lost no time going downstairs, running so fast that by the first floor they were out of breath and carrying on only on the promise that if they stopped to rest they were most likely going to die.

Not even a couple of minutes later they were in their cars, starting the ignition and driving out of there so fast that the smell of burnt tires filled them for a while. Puck, Kurt, Tina and Mike were in the Navigator, the rest in the red one that they had jumpstarted in the morning.

Puck waited no time to open his window and take his gun out; ready to kill whatever it could possibly appear on the road. Mike followed his example when he realized that people started to come out of their houses to the streets. Some of the limped, some of them run, but all of them looked crazed and all of their eyes reflected the light from the car.

They made the eight minute trip from St. Rita to Puck's house in about twenty, that with all the car crashes around and with all the avoiding of zombies they had to do on the way. After Market Street it seemed that most of those people had decided to get out of wherever they had been hiding to start hunting. They got a respite on the area surrounding the river, but as closer as they got to the more residential parts of town, more zombies seemed to appear on their way.

"Yesterday wasn't like this, the town was deserted!" Puck exclaimed after shooting someone he was almost sure was one of his neighbors in the leg.

"I know. I don't think your house is safe, or anyone else's really" Kurt said, while turning right on Mc Pheron Ave.

"Maybe whatever is infecting them takes a while to take hold?" Tina asked, while passing Mike her gun while she reloaded the other one.

"Whatever it is, I think we'll need new headquarters come morning" Kurt said, before pulling into the driveway, close to a scary Santana and her girlfriend with the shotgun.

"First we'll need to survive the night" Puck said before getting down from the car.


	29. Part XXVIII

**Part XXVIII**

* * *

><p>"Where is Lauren?" Puck asked as soon as they were out of the car. Kurt was close to him, a hand on Puck's arm and his gun in the other.<p>

"Second floor, hallway window looking to the backyard" Santana answered a bit surprised. The other car got there just when Puck was starting to walk away from the girl. "Why?" she asked before he went away.

"Are you sure this is the right time for this?" Tina asked, looking around the street where, slowly but surely, some guys seemed to be walking towards them.

"We need to know if she is dangerous or not. We could be killing zombies outside without knowing we have one inside" Puck said, taking Kurt's hand and walking fast with him to the door. "You'll come with me, right?"

"Of course"

The house was dark, lit only by a few well-placed candles in each room, most of them near mirrors. It wasn't difficult to find Lauren, as she was just turning the corner after the stairs, and they weren't exactly surprised to find her with a rifle in her hands, but if the tighter grip on his arm was any indication Kurt was a bit worried to be talking with her while she had a weapon.

"Lauren, leave the gun for a second" Puck said, trying to look as nonchalant as he could. It wouldn't do to scare her and freak her out if that was going to speed up her turning, as it seemed to have happened to Stanley "We need to talk"

"What about?" asked the girl not really leaving the window but letting the rifle leaning against the wall as she was being told to do.

"We think that everyone in this town has turned into zombies" Puck said.

"That makes sense. Go on"

"And we found your mom at the hospital, she was one of them" he continued, getting a bit closer to the girl no matter how much Kurt tried to keep him by his side by clinging to his jacket.

"But… I thought I had killed her" she commented looking confused.

"She was one of them, Lauren"

"What is that supposed to mean?" she said, her eyes getting smaller and smaller until she wasn't just looking at them but glaring.

"That means that everyone we don't behead or make sure their brain is done for, is probably going to come back" Puck said, throwing caution to the wind and hugging the girl, to comfort her and keep her still if she started to get crazy. "… And that everyone bitten has the chance of turning into one of them" he added to her ear in a whisper.

He could see in the window's reflection the way that Kurt had tensed, how his shoulders were straight and his hand was gripping the gun close to his stomach, trying to look as harmless as he could but not really making it.

"What are you trying to say, Puckerman?" the girl asked. He could see her scowling in his mind, and he knew that if he didn't say it all he wasn't going to get her to admit to what might have been the problem, if it was a problem. They didn't even know if it was going to be one.

"You were bitten, weren't you?"

"You think I'm going to…"

"We don't know, but maybe… Who knows how this infection is working"

"I don't want to turn into one of them" the girl said, letting go a little and looking at him with such despair that Puck felt his heart crumbling for her. She was Lauren Zizes, she was a badass, and yet all he could see in front of him was a scared girl that didn't know what was happening to her, who had just lost her parents and who, by all means, might be losing her mind without her even knowing.

"We don't want you to turn into one of the either" Puck said, lifting his hand to clean her cheeks of tears.

"Staying calm seems to help, though" Kurt said, speaking for the first time in a shy voice. "Maybe, as long as you keep calm you'll manage to avoid turning for a while longer"

"Are you sure, Hummel?" she asked, a light of hope in her voice.

"No, not really, but it's worth a shot" he said. "There was a kid at the hospital, he was fine in the beginning, but he started going crazy when he panicked"

"You'll have to tell us if you feel any difference in yourself, though" Puck said, looking into her eyes. "You need to realize that you are a danger to everyone right now, and really, the only reason we aren't abandoning you it's because we know you and love you. But you are a danger"

"You know… if I had to be a deathly creature I would have been a vampire, or a werewolf, never a zombie" she said with a mock laugh. "I'll tell you as soon as I see myself getting stir-crazy like my mom, I swear, as long as you don't kill me until I'm gone, man"

"Girl, if we are telling you this is because we don't want to kill you. It would kill me to have to do it, and you know it. So don't laugh about it" Puck said, throwing a hand down his Mohawk in desolation.

"Puckerman, you won't have to. I swear you won't" she said, looking at him straight in the eyes with such certainty that Puck felt a shiver roll down his spine. He tried to talk, but she got such a grip on his face that he couldn't even nod. He swallowed. "Now, how about you two get the windows from your room and we get this party started? Santana gave us precise instructions about what she'd do with us if one of them entered the house, and while I don't fear her… I do kind of fear those guys."

And just like that she dismissed them; she took the rifle and, looking out of the window with a pensive look on her face, she closed them off her world while she inspected the backyard and her thoughts.

Puck took Kurt's hand and walked him into his room, where the kid just took a look around before sitting on the window sill and waiting for Puck to close the door.

"Will she really be ok?" he asked in a whisper when they were sure that she wasn't going to hear them.

"I can only hope" Puck said, sitting down on the bed while holding his head in his hands.

"Rest first. I'll wake you up in a couple hours"

"Are you sure? It's not like you had a better day than I did"

"I won't be able to fall asleep being this stressed" Kurt answered, shrugging. "Sleep, I'll wake you up in a while"

"Thanks, Princess" Puck said, with a small smile. "Just kick me if I snore"

"Oh, believe me, I will" he answered, with a small smile of his own. For a moment tried to imagine that this was normal, and he didn't had a gun in his hands.

And for a moment it worked.


	30. Part XXIX

**Part XXIX**

* * *

><p>Given the amount of zombies they had seen on the way Kurt really thought that he'd spend more time shooting than resting, but it seemed that, whatever it was that was affecting their brains made it impossible to them to actually follow anything faster than them… or they just forgot about it as soon as they were out of reach.<p>

The silence outside was terrifying, so Puck' snores were almost welcome.

Sure, there had been some shooting, but every time a zombie so much as got close to the house one of the people on the second floor would manage to incapacitate him so Santana could blow their brains with a shotgun headshot at a really close range.

At some point Puck had actually woken up with the gunfire and, sleepily, fumbled over his bedside table until he found some earplugs, which he proceed to put on before going back to unconsciousness.

If it wasn't for the dire situation they were in Kurt would have almost thought that a half asleep Puck was one of the most adorable things he had ever seen, but the situation was dire and as much as he wished he could forget about it, every minute that passed was a minute in which his father and step mother were still lost. In which he had no way of knowing if Blaine was alright, alive even, because there was no cellphone signal and it was impossible to know if this was something that had only happened in Lima or the whole world.

He really didn't know how Puck was dealing with all of this. His mom and sister were out there too; he said he had freaked out while he was on his own, but all that had happened in the last few days must have been accumulating in his mind just like it was on his. The possibility of losing one of his best friends, Lauren, must have been a great strike and Kurt just wished he knew how to help him out.

But he really didn't know how to do that when he felt so broken himself.

The quiet beep of his phone alarm going off rose him from that small trance he had fallen into and he went to the bed, so tired that he was sure he was going to be able to sleep no matter how stressed he had. It was barely two in the morning, but he hadn't had a full night sleep the night before and all that running around was sure to tire him.

He walked to the bed and tapped faintly on Puck's shoulder, who was moaning softly on the bed.

"Puck, wake up. It's your turn" he whispered close to his ear, not wanting to break the silent spell on the house but not wanting to touch the earplugs either. The boy did it for him, though, taking them out and looking at Kurt like he was a ghost.

"Kurt? ... You are alive" the guy said, with such a relief in his voice that Kurt didn't have a doubt that, whatever the boy had been dreaming, it must have been a horrible nightmare. A pair of strong arms enveloped him in a hug that he didn't know if he couldn't or didn't want to escape from.

"What were you dreaming about?" he asked to the boy's neck.

"I couldn't find you. We were in the hospital and I couldn't find you. I thought you were dead" Puck answered, taking Kurt's head in his hands and looking straight to his eyes. "I don't care where we are or what we are doing, you are not leaving me. If you want to take a leak or whatever, I'm going with you. I refuse to lose you too, ok?"

"Of course, Puck" he answered with a small nervous laugh.

"I'm serious, man. We don't split. You need to take a leak, or a dump, or jerk off, or whatever the fuck you want to do, you go with me" he said, looking, by all means, serious about it. "You, and Finn and Rachel too, may be all I have left now, man. I'm not losing you because we were too shy to go to the bathroom together. I won't lose you because of something that stupid, you hear me? I'm not losing you"

"Ok, Puck, I promise. We won't split, not even for bodily functions. It's ok, we are going to survive this" Kurt said, awkwardly patting his shoulder and trying to smile through his fears.

So, he was right, underneath all that strong façade Puck had been hurting too, he just had been a bit better at hiding it until the dreams started to come and the fears began to show themselves. Maybe he had broken down as he said, and that gave him a bit of an advantage at getting his emotions under control, but things were starting to hit close to his heart again and the pain in his eyes was overwhelming.

"You promise?" Puck asked with his eyes wide open and his pupils blown in the darkness.

"I do, I promise"

Puck took Kurt's head then and brought their foreheads together while he recovered his breath from the terrified state he had woken up with.

"Thanks, man… and sorry for being so weird"

"It's ok, it's understand-"

The sounds of shouts and gunfire shook them from the lethargic air in which they had fallen, those little moments between being sleep and being awake, and threw them into fast motion. They waited no time to get their guns and look out the window, seeing nothing in the field of vision. Santana's cries for help, however, directed them to the other side of the house.

Without thinking about it they ran out of the room and down the stairs to where they could hear the girl shouting for someone to stop, to come back. In no time they were out of the house, Lauren close behind them on the door.

Santana was in the middle on the road, pointing her shotgun at something with her good arm. The tears were running free down her cheeks while she shouted at someone to stop, to just stop moving, to get out of there, to come back.

And, down the street, was Brittany, walking fast towards what could only be her mother or sister if the blond hair was any indication, without listening to what her girlfriend was trying to say. The girl Britt was walking towards was on the floor, cradling one her legs while hissing to the girl, a hiss that Puck and Kurt could recognize everywhere.

Santana was crying, barely moving from her spot, only aiming at the woman on the floor when her eyes cleared, but unable to shoot because Britt was right in the middle.


	31. Part XXX

**Part XXX**

* * *

><p>"Why are you just standing there, girl!" Lauren exclaimed before running towards Britt, who was each time closer to the woman on the floor.<p>

Puck decided to run with her, while Kurt took a crying Santana in his arms.

"She just didn't want to hear me, she said she hates me for shooting her mom, she said she hates me and I couldn't help her… She'd only hate me more… and I froze. Kurt, I froze" the girl screamed and cried in his arms.

"It's ok; Puck and Lauren will take care of this. It's ok" he said, looking ahead to where the action was taking place.

* * *

><p>Puck was running behind Lauren before he even realized how dangerous it was to do so, but all he knew was that his friends were in danger and he'd do whatever he could to protect them, no matter how stupid it was.<p>

He knew that the woman on the ground was Brittany's mom; he had seen her enough times to recognize her by then, but her expression was feral and the way she growled was a great indicator that the last thing you would want to do was try to get close to her, so he knew immediately that before anything happened he had to make sure that Britt didn't got in the woman's reach.

All those times running on the field were finally useful when he managed to grab her by the waist and get her out of the way before the zombie grabbed her, as she obviously was about to do. They tumbled to the ground a few feet away from where the woman was.

"Puck, it's my mom! She is hurt!" the girl said, squirming in his arms to get to her mother just as the woman began crawling in their direction.

Lauren was there, running, but obviously tired. She saw the situation and how close the zombie was to them, how impossible it was for Puck to move when he couldn't even get up because of the way Britt fought to get free, and without even stopping to think about what she was doing she shot the woman in the head, three times, enough to kill whatever possibility of her going back up.

Britt screamed.

She cried in his arms, shouting and kicking and trying as hard as she could to get free… And Puck couldn't do anything but hold her tight as the girl broke down in his arms, crying for a mother that must have been dead for a good while already.

Broken and damaged, but alive.

Hating him, but intact.

He got a couple of kicks in the shins, and some well-placed elbows, but he didn't let her go. Instead, he grabbed her tight and stood up with her while Lauren put the body near some bushes where it wouldn't bother them if they got out of there in a car. Together, the three of them, they made the way to the house.

It didn't really matter how much the girl hated him as long as she was alive and well.

If she was, they hadn't really checked if she was one of the possible zombies like Lauren. They'd have to do it as soon as they could, because if the distress in which the girl was ended in her being dangerous to the people on the house, he didn't know what they'd have to do… but they'd have to take care of the matter.

When they came close to Santana and Kurt, the girl in his arms finally started to calm down, begging him to let her down and running towards her girlfriend as soon as her feet touched the ground. If he expected a hug, some comforting words, and maybe a kiss, he got everything wrong.

The girl got close to Santana and looked at her with such a strong disgust in her eyes that it was more intense than if she had slapped her so hard that the sound echoed on the silent street.

"It was your entire fault. She couldn't run away because of you" the blonde said in such a cold voice that Puck was taken back.

"She was a monster, Britt, you have to understand" Santana cried, holding her cheek in her hand.

"She was my mom, she might have known where my family was, where Lord Tubbington was. And now she is gone!" the girl said, crying and rubbing her eyes while everyone looked the scene without knowing what to do.

"Britt, she was going to kill you" Lauren said, putting her hand on the girl's shoulder. Almost immediately it was slapped as Britt turned to look at her.

"And you killed her! You shouldn't even be here. You are one of them, aren't you? You are a monster just like them. I heard Rachel's gay dads talking about it, you are a monster too"

"Britt, calm down. You have to understand…" Puck begged, standing next to Kurt and grabbing his hand.

"All of you… all of you killed my mom. What is there to understand?" she cried.

"She wasn't your mom anymore, Britt" Santana tried again, biting her lips and looking absolutely devastated. "She probably didn't even knew who you were"

"I don't care. I hate you, all of you" she said, before going inside the house, slamming the door behind her.

"It's ok, Santana. She'll have to get over it at some point" Puck tried to say.

"She is never going to stop hating me"

Before they could even try to comprehend how they could help, Britt was back on the road with a plastic bag full of junk food. She looked at them for a couple of minutes before start walking down the street. Sam and Rachel were out of the house close behind her, begging her to stop.

"Britt, where are you going?" Kurt asked, walking towards her, the rest of the group close on their feet.

"I'm going to my grandma's. She must know what to do now, she always does" the girl said, shrugging. Her voice was tight with tears, and her shoulders were slumped.

"Britt, your grandma lives in Toledo. You can't walk there, not this late in the night, and certainly not alone" cried Santana, trying to reach one of her hands. The blonde just moved her hand out of the way and kept walking.

Kurt was in front of her in a minute, his hands on her shoulders and looking directly to her eyes. The fear and hurt in them has him reeling, but it was too clear in her eyes that the decision she had took wasn't going to change, no matter how much they begged her.

"There isn't any other way?" he asked, hugging her. Surprisingly, she let him.

"I can't stay here knowing what happened. I won't. It hurts to look at them, it hurts too much" Britt whispered against his shoulder.

"Ok, its ok, Britt. I understand. But you can't go to Toledo like that. You won't get that far just walking, much less walking alone. You'll get tired before getting out of Lima and they'll kill you before you cross the river" he said, brushing her hair with his fingers.

"I can't stay here, Kurt, I can't. I don't want to see them ever again"

"I can go with her" said a voice, closer to them than Kurt had realized. He hadn't even noticed when someone got there. He looked up and saw Sam, his eyes red and puffy, his hands trembling, looking back at him with such despair that Kurt couldn't even imagine how it was that he was up on his feet again "I don't have anything to tie me here anymore and everywhere I look something reminds me of Stevie and Stacy" he added with a broken voice.

"Are you sure, dude? We can look after each other better if we are all together" Puck said, letting his hand fall on Sam's shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm sure. She won't leave with Santana, and nobody really wants to leave besides me. And I was already thinking about leaving, so yeah" he said, shrugging.

The gesture was probably meant to give them some sort of security about what was going on, but there was nothing in his posture that said he was alright. Sam seemed to sag into himself after he did it, like all the weight of the world was over his shoulders. Puck gathered him into his arms, patting his back awkwardly; it seemed to help him a bit, kept him without hitting the ground, and that was enough for now.

"Will you go with Sam?" Kurt asked the girl in his arms. She nodded. "Then take your guns with you, and take care of each other, please" he asked, looking at Sam too.

"Don't worry about us, Kurtie" she said, with a very small smile. "We'll see each other again when all this thing ends, right?"

"Of course we will" he answered, with a huge lump in his throat that was threatening to turn into tears in any moment.

"Then don't worry about us" Sam said, walking up to them and taking the girl from his arms. Puck was quickly at his side, grasping his hand to keep him safe from his emotions that were, almost successfully, trying to overwhelm him. "Unless you see our dead bodies, always think that we are alive and we'll meet again. That somehow we'll find each other after" the blond added with a tight voice looking at everyone.

"They get out at night, they hide from the sun and bright lights blind them. And they seem to avoid the river, I don't know why" Kurt said, rubbing away a tear that was currently making its way down his cheek. "Please take care, survive this"

"You guys too" Sam said, before enveloping them in a tight hug. "Thank you for everything, see you later, ok?"

"See you later, Sam" they whispered to each of his shoulders.

Soon Britt was hugging them tightly too, crying until their jackets were wet with her tears, but with no words spoken besides 'I'll miss you' and 'find Lord Tubbington, please'.

Rachel was crying openly. Finn was looking small, like a child, and so scared that it hurt Kurt's heart to be so far from them and unable to see him smile. Hiram and Leroy were sad, and worried, giving them a couple bags with some clothes and batteries, flashlights and ammo; like some sort of twisted care package. Tina was crying on the floor, holding onto Britt for dear life while Mike did the same with Sam, who was crying harder than ever now in his arms.

Lauren was sitting by the side walk, looking empty, like she was falling into despair.

And Santana… Santana looked crushed. Her tears had never stopped falling down her cheeks, and she looked even paler under the moonlight. She kept looking at Britt, like she was half expecting everything to be a really bad nightmare, like she was going to wake up at some point and everything was going to be fine, like she wasn't about to be separated from her girlfriend without knowing if they'd ever see each other again.

The broken whisper of Britt's name when the blonde decided that they were done with their goodbyes, without actually saying goodbye to Santana, was something that Kurt was sure that he wasn't going to forget.

"Britt, please. You can't do this to me. Don't leave me like this" the girl cried, her arms tight around herself.

"Sanny… you know I love you" Britt said, without turning to look at her.

"Don't say that if you are going to leave me alone because I tried to protect you" Santana said, curling over herself.

"I just can't look at you right now without remembering, Sanny. I can't" Britt said, crying.

Soon Sam was hugging her, saying something softly into her ear, and then the blond was right in front of Santana, holding her tightly and whispering things that no one really got to hear, not even in the awful silence that surrounded them.

"Teach me how to hot wire a car, Kurt, please?" Sam asked, looking tired.

Kurt nodded, and while the girls talked and kissed on the ground, they selected a strong looking car and they got to ignite it.

"What did you tell her?" Kurt asked in a whisper while he showed him how to unlock the steering wheel and the wires that he would be using.

"The truth, that this might be the last time she saw Santana alive, and she shouldn't miss it because she was angry and hurt" he said, looking even more tired than before.

The motor started without problem, and Kurt smiled when Sam did it again.

"Take care, Sam. Please survive this" he asked, knowing that it was something no one could promise, but needing to hear it anyway.

"We will, and so will you guys. Besides, I owe you a duet and I always honor my words" Sam said with a smile so small that Kurt wasn't sure he hadn't imagined.

And then Britt and Sam were getting in the car, driving to who knows were, leaving them heartbroken in their rearview mirror.

* * *

><p><em>Guys, I'm going to be on a bit of a hiatus till xmas, because finals are all over me. So, I wont update till then, I'm warning you so you know it's not that I forgot about the story or it's going to be abandoned, it's just that updating will take a bit longer. Thank you for your kind words and reviews, you make my day all the time!<em>


	32. Texts from Dave and Part XXXI

**Part XXXI**

* * *

><p>You have 5 new messages from: Dave Karofsky.<p>

To: Az.

Message 1: Man, I have the biggest hungover in story of manking. I blame you.

Message 2: Where the fuck are you? Getting a ride with Brown.

Message 3: Az, I think my family is dead. Can you come over?

Message 4: Look, I'm going over to your house. Everyone is gone in this fucking town.

Message 5: Man, where the fuck are you? Send me a me message if you are alive.

* * *

><p>Morning took too long to come for most of them, with little time to sleep between watches or completely unable to do so because they were just too worried. They spent most of the night looking out for zombies and trying hard to avoid thinking about the way their friends had left with all the odds against them.<p>

Almost everyone had tried to go back to their chosen duty, and their lookout places. Some were trying to get some sleep downstairs or those rooms with less contact to the exterior, but Kurt went back to Puck's bed. The earplugs would keep the shots at bay; he had said when the boy told him it was fine if he wanted to be with the others, the partners shouldn't split even when they were in a safe zone.

But his mind just couldn't shut up.

Mercedes was gone, as it was her father and the rest of her family, Lauren's mom was dead, and Lauren herself might as well be if she was really infected, they had lost Stevie and Stacy, Artie was probably gone too, all parents were gone excepting for Rachel's, Quinn was missing, he had killed an innocent boy, Stanley… among the countless nameless zombies he had shot while Puck was asleep.

How it was that things got so messed up in least than a week?

Should they just keep thinking that everyone was either infected or dead? And if it was like that, why were they alive? How had they managed to be uninfected when everyone else was like that?

And what about their parents and family? Should he just stop hoping to find them?

He really didn't want to think like that, he just couldn't. With time, when all of this got easier, his family was going to appear. Maybe his dad had gone to his grandma's or to Toledo to see Carole's family. And maybe the same could be said about Puck's mom and sister.

Now, it was just a matter of time. They just had to keep surviving until things calmed down, until the zombies went away.

Then, and only then, they'd be able to get out of town, to look for their families elsewhere. He could even detour a little to check on Blaine at Dalton, who, really, was the safest of them all as long as he kept enclosed at the building and didn't venture outside like Kurt had done.

Sometimes he really wished he had listened to what the warblers had said and stayed there. But then Kurt looked around, looked at his brother, his friends, Puck, and just knew there was no way he could live with himself not knowing what was happening in Lima where all the people he cared about was.

Blaine was safe at Dalton, so Kurt wasn't really worried for him right now, but as risky as it was being on Lima right now, Kurt wouldn't change it for the safety of Westerville. No if it implied not knowing what was happening with his family.

Should he start worrying about Blaine too, about zombies on Westerville? Maybe what had happened in Lima had happened everywhere and here he was thinking that Blaine was safe at Dalton, when in reality Blaine was just as screwed as he was.

"Kurt, shut your brain down. It's been an hour and half and you are still awake" Puck said, after he took the earplug from without Kurt noticing. He turned around in bed and looked at the guy, who was grinning down on him.

"It has been that long, really?"

"Yup, and if you don't fall asleep soon you are going to be a zombie tomorrow" he said with a smirk.

"Ha-ha. You are so funny," Kurt deadpanned. "My mind is all over the place. I can't get asleep like that, no matter how tired I am"

"Do you want me to tire you out faster?" Puck said, with a grin.

"Don't let your mouth write checks that your body can't cash out, Puck" he answered with a smile that had more to do with Puck's willingness to get his mind out of the situation than what was being said.

"Dunno, man, Matt's ass felt really nice when we were fucking April. I'm almost sure I could cash it" Puck said with a laugh, while Kurt's eyes got huge.

"Why were you touching Matt's ass?" he asked.

"I needed the leverage if I wanted her to scream" Puck shrugged, sitting on the bed and looking at him calmly. "Just go to sleep, Kurt. I don't want you tired tomorrow; we're going to have one hell of a day"

"I'm trying. I just can't stop worrying about everything" Kurt said, letting his head fall back on the pillow.

"Ok, worry about this instead" Puck said, kissing his lips softly. It was barely there, and it lasted less than ten seconds, but it was a kiss. One that really didn't have a reason other than to keep him distracted. Did it?

Also, did that count as cheating?

God, what did it mean?

"Puck, what was that about?" he asked, sitting up for a little. Puck had gone back to his place on the window and was licking his lips while looking outside.

"Dunno for you, man, but I can tell that the last thing from my mind right now is the hell outside. I think, as far as distractions go, it was one hell of a good one" he said, looking back at him with a grin. "Think about the kiss, man, about me cashing that check out after all. I bet it's going to be a nicer distraction than whatever you were thinking before. You'll fall asleep easier"

Kurt laughed and fell back to bed with a small disbelieving smile on his face.

Fifteen minutes later Puck looked back to check on him, and found him out like a light.

* * *

><p>"We need to go somewhere bigger. Not to offend you, Puckerman, but your house barely held you, your mom and your sister, it can't hold all of us" Santana said, eating small crumbs of bread and ham.<p>

Hiram and Leroy were trying to be as conscious about stuff as they could, giving them all the perishable food now, before it started to go bad, and leaving all the canned and non-perishable stuff for later. They just didn't know how long they were going to have to resist like this, but they needed to be make it last as long as they could. Some of them, like Finn, might have complained a bit, but Rachel was enough to make everyone obey even if just to have her shut up.

Everyone was tired and no one wanted to listen to her rant if they could help it.

"Man, don't I know it" he said. "We never thought that so many people would end up staying here. It was going to be Finn, Rachel and her dads, and me" he said, shrugging while he served himself some milk and cereal.

"We should try to find something near the river. If what Kurt noticed is true then at least we won't have to worry about them coming from the water" Tina said. She had her eyes closed, and Mike was giving her a massage on the shoulders.

"What about McKinley?" Mike asked, looking at Kurt and Puck for an answer. "At least there's a distance between it and everything else, if you take on the baseball fields, parking lots, and stuff, so we'd be able to see if something is coming much earlier than when it knocks on our door"

"But it's a big building. It must have all sort of creepers inside by now" Santana said, looking tired.

"It sounds good" Finn said, rubbing his eyes.

"The only other place that has that much amount of distance to the streets is the cemeteries, and it's a bit too morbid right now" Rachel supplied, while trying to get Kurt to eat some more. "Besides, maybe there will be more people in needing of refuge, and the school has enough space for everyone"

"I don't even know where we are going to sleep there. I don't want to sleep on the floor" Kurt said, letting his head fall to Puck's shoulder. The mohawked boy just put a hand on his hair, ruffling it, before going back to his cereal, letting him rest some more.

"Maybe we could pile up some mattresses over your car and take them there. You are right, if we are going to be living at school we might as well get as comfortable as we can" Rachel said, nodding to herself.

"First, we need to go kill the fuckers at school, 'cause I'm sure there must be some around and I don't want surprises in the middle of the night" Puck said, before muttering a sorry to Hiram who was looking at him like he was going to chastise him for his language.

"We are going to need more bullets, man. I'm not the best shooter out there, but if we're going to be shooting as much as we did yesterday we are going to need way more for the next days" Lauren said.

Not everyone knew about her possible infection yet, but those who did tried hard not to look at the way she just wasn't touching her breakfast, but kept staring at it like it would bite her a soon as she didn't.

"Well, my dad always complained that the only place in town to get any ammunition was Lynn's pawn shop. If we don't find anything else we might be in need to go out of town, to Wapakoneta or Ottawa, maybe" Kurt answered, not even bothering to open his eyes.

"Ok, then. Kurt goes to Lynn's and everyone else goes to McKinley. Easy peachy" Santana said, with a shrug.

"Not a chance that I'm leaving Kurt to go alone. I'm going with him" Puck said, almost immediately.

"Well, we are going to need every hand at school, Puck" she said.

"We are partners, and in zombie apocalypse, if there's one thing you know is that no one goes anywhere alone" Puck replied.

"Finn can go with him, we need good shooters there"

"No, you are all going to be fine with people who actually know the place. Before last year I didn't even knew we had a library. I'm going with Kurt and that's final"


	33. Part XXXII

**Part XXXII**

* * *

><p>Lynn's Pawn Shop was a corner store, at Main and Mc Kibben. It had a yellow stone-like cladding and an awful lettering naming the store Lynn's. The glass on the door was broken, but the security screen door was still tightly in place. Even if parts of the design were bent out of shape like someone had tried to hit it until it broke. Luckily for them, it hadn't.<p>

The lock on the aluminum frame that was left after the glass was broken was easily picked, by a grumpy Kurt while an amused Puck watched the streets.

"I really hated this place" Kurt said, before opening the door and starting to pick on the security screen.

"Why? Looks like a pretty normal place" Puck said, his eyes never leaving the roads.

"Lynn was an alright guy I guess, but then he died and his widow took over, and was a bitch. She always looked at me like I was supposed to be buying one of her overpriced pieces of jewelry for girls, and buying ammo to look manlier" Kurt said, after finishing with that lock and opening the door with a kick. Puck was right behind him, flashlight pointing inside and gun at the ready. "That and she had the most overpriced items I've ever seen. I don't even know if she sold anything the way she was going"

"Looks like you actually knew her" Puck said, looking at the store from outside still, without even trying to get in.

"My dad always forgot stuff before he went hunting, so it was up to me to buy these things more often than not" he answered, before going behind the counter and started looking around, between boxes full of uninteresting stuff and things that there was no way they'd work now with no electric power. "It's curious the amount of people you get to know in a city like this. It's even worse when you realize how many of them hate you without even knowing you"

It was under the counter, behind some paint gallons, that Kurt seemed to find what he was looking for. He fell to his knees and opened one of the messenger bags he had with him, to throw everything he could find inside. He didn't even pause to look to the caliber of the rounds, or if the box was unopened or not. He doubted that, while in danger, he was going to stop and considerate the difference between hollow-pointed bullets and common ones. He took as many buckshot rounds for the shotgun and bullets for the riffles as he could find, but there weren't many. He didn't even remember all the calibers of the arms they had, so he didn't bother with trying, besides, he didn't want to have to come back to this awful place just because he took things that didn't match the guns.

He just took everything he found and put it on one of the bags.

With a second thought he broke the glass covering the guns and took those as well, placing them on the other bag. It was better to have a few too many than not enough for all of them.

"Ok, I think we are done with the ammo here, and I got some extra guns" Kurt said, as soon as he reached the door. Puck turned to look at him, with something in his eyes that he just couldn't explain, and went to the car. Kurt followed, knowing that asking wouldn't really give him answers this time, at least, not until Puck decided to talk.

It had taken a lot of will to leave the Nav in Finn's hands (it was bigger, so they'd be able to carry more people to McKinley and more stuff from the house) and go with the hotwired car that he and Rachel had been using the day before. Right now, trying to start it with a screwdriver he was regretting the choice.

"So, do we have to go to Wapakoneta anyway or not?" Puck asked, slipping into his seat and tugging at the seat belt as soon as Kurt glared at him.

"I got everything they had, which was plenty, but just seeing how many rounds we used yesterday… I think it would last us about a week. Either people start learning to aim, or we'll need a lot more than we got if we want to last more than that" Kurt answered, finally starting the engine and looking around more in a reflex than because he had heard anything.

The perpetual silence was still around.

There was a barely clothed body in front of the night club across the street. A girl, no more than twenty he guessed, who had died instead of being infected, and who had turned into dinner immediately after. He has seen too many people like that on the road from Dalton, so the sight wasn't as strange now as it had been then, and the gag reflex wasn't as strong, but it was still weird to start realizing that this was reality now and he had to accept it. He hasn't going to wake up from that awful nightmare any time soon.

"Wapakoneta it is then" Puck said, waking him up from his trance.

They drove in silence. The only noise around was the engine and the snow under the wheels. It took about an hour to get to Wapakoneta instead of half, mostly because of the car crashes that still obstructed the way and because the snow hadn't stopped falling in some places, so it was still as dangerous as it had been that Sunday night. At least there was daylight now.

He couldn't even imagine how awful it would have been if something had tried to get to his car that night. He doubted he'd be alive by now if that was the case.

They were just rounding Wapakoneta, in the middle of the US-33 when Puck started talking again, breaking the silence that surrounded them, and the silence he had fallen into since going out of Lima.

"Look, about that kiss…" he started, obviously uncomfortable.

"It's ok, Puck, we are in a weird set of mind right now and under a lot of stress. It should be obvious that we are going to do things that we are going to regret in the morning" Kurt interrupted him. If his hands were gripping the steering wheel too tight, it was just because of how difficult it was to drive in that junk of a car in the middle of the snow.

Really, it was just that.

"I don't regret it" Puck said, looking at him so directly that Kurt was tempted to stop the car right there and have a discussion about what did he meant, but he didn't dare to look at him, not if he was going to say stuff like that. "Sure, you have a boyfriend or whatever, and that's kind of crappy of me. I did say I'd try not to want people who were in relationships… but I don't regret it"

"I don't know what you want me to say, Puck"

"Nothing, I just wanted you to know that. I mean, we are in a shitty situation and stuff like me thinking all night about wanting to fuck you is bound to make us feel uncomfortable if we keep it hidden, I guess" Puck says, shrugging as if what he said didn't really matter, but Kurt could see the way his shoulders were tensed and the way his jaw muscles were pulling the skin against it. This did matter, as much as he tried to be nonchalant about it.

"Besides, it was a nice kiss. Wasn't it?" he added after a minute, looking at Kurt with such a goofy smile that he couldn't help but smile and laugh too.

"Yeah, it was a nice kiss. It lasted so little, though. I don't know what that says about your supposed prowess in bed" Kurt answered, trying to lighten up the mood a little.

"Oh, man, don't dare me to prove things. I'm trying to be honorable here" Puck whined, letting his head fall to the glass.

Kurt laughed, going left on Bay Road, and trying to avoid a few car crashes on the exit from the US-33. There was a huge column of smoke ahead of them.

"Please tell me it's not the dealer's place" Puck asked, whistling as he saw the way the smoke rose to meet the sky.

"I don't know, but it looks like it might"


	34. Part XXXIII

Part XXXIII

* * *

><p>Berlet Farm Services had 3 buildings among a lot of parking places. Two of them were up in flames, the fire melting the snow around them, leaving a muddy mess on the ground, and the smoke going south with the wind. The house were Kurt knew the family lived was fine, if it wasn't for the blood spatters on the walls that talked about headshots instead of people cradling open wounds like they had seen everywhere else.<p>

The sound of the ground under their feet instead of snow was weird, but welcomed, even if the heat rolling from the buildings made them wish they had left their jackets on the car. As long as they avoided the mud everything would be fine.

"That was the place where they sold and stored stuff" Kurt said, pointing to the biggest building, from which the fire was blazing with anguished noises from the wood. The crackling and the sound of the flames was so strong that Kurt wondered for a while if maybe the guy had been storing fuel inside, because after all that snow it seemed impossible that that kind of fire could stay that strong.

"So, there's no ammo in here, right?" Puck asked, leaning on the car and crossing his arms over his chest.

"Well… unless you have a death wish" Kurt said motioning with his head to the building in flames, walking over to the only building that wasn't on fire just to examine the bodies. It was really strange to feel the heat rolling off on one side while the other still felt the cold wind blowing.

"No, not really. Do _you_ have a death wish? Why are you leaving without a weapon, man? Where are you going?" Puck asked, trailing after him and handling him a gun.

"Sorry, wasn't really thinking. I was going to see why were they dead and if there's anything inside that we could use. I don't really want this trip to be in vain" Kurt answered, shrugging. "We got the easy task here; while we are just going around in a car our friends are clearing a building. The least we can do is try to get as much as we can"

"Yeah, whatever dude, just don't forget your gun in the car next time, ok? We don't know what we might find"

They walked together to the house, now way more alert about their surroundings than they had been a few seconds ago. On the porch they could see a man on the ground, leaning against the wall under a blood trail. He had a bullet hole on his forehead and the blood from the wound had started dripping down his nose. He didn't look bitten or infected at all.

Puck threw him a stone to see if it reacted, and waited until he was sure that the man wasn't going to get up, before getting closer and trying to open the door. He started kicking it in the middle to make it move. Nothing happened. It must have been blocked.

"There's a window" Kurt said, motioning to the left. "And there has to be another door somewhere" he added, but Puck wasn't exactly listening to him. He was stripping the man against the door and covering his leg with his jacket, just before breaking the glass with a powerful kick. With aid of the stolen piece of clothing he took most of the glass from the frame and threw one of his legs inside the house, before smirking to Kurt, and sliding inside.

Kurt soon followed, careful not to rip his own jacket of whatever might have been left from the glass, and started walking inside.

The place smelled awful, like dead people. They didn't understood before what the movies were talking about when someone said there was the smells of dead around, now they knew. When someone died all sphincters relaxed, and it wasn't weird that some pissed themselves while cowering in fear. That was what death smelt like. It smelt like blood, and dirty bathroom. It smell like all those things humanity tried so hard to hide from their everyday.

There was a woman in the hallway floor, she had been wearing what only could've been pajamas, and the top of her shirt was covered in blood. There were a couple of broken vases and books, possibly thrown by the woman, next to the entrance door, which they unlocked from the inside before going back to searching the house. Someone had searched everything in that house, clothes were all around the place, furniture was upturned, and there was nothing for them to look at.

The walked to the back of the house, where the bedrooms were, and were startled with what they found in them; the house had four bedrooms, one master bedroom and three for the couple's kids. The children had been asleep when whoever had attacked them came, and they hadn't seemed to wake up with the shooting, at least not fast enough to run away; two of them had been killed in their beds, the other was in a corner, a Teddy bear in her hands.

Kurt couldn't help but think of Stevie and Stacy.

"I don't get it. They came in here, ransacked what they could and set fire to everything… but what was the need to kill them? Ok, maybe the adults I can get, but the kids? They aren't exactly a threat" Puck said, after covering them with blankets and walking to the living room. "I can get the ransacking, we've done it too, but killing those kids? They didn't even looked infected"

"Part of me gets it, though" Kurt said after a while. He sat in a love seat in front of a broken TV and looked at his hands. "I think I'd be able to do it"

"What is there to get, Kurt? Those kids were fine; they weren't a danger to anyone… You can't be serious" Puck said, looking at Kurt as if he were crazy.

"Stanley…"

"Stanley was dangerous, we both know it" Puck said, looking at him and willing him to understand "it's different".

"But…"

"No, Kurt, Stanley was good as dead already. He is better now than living like that"

"That's just it, Puck. Look, I can't look at those kids and not think about Stevie and Stacy. You saw them too, you know how bad they were, and you heard Sam talking about how strong Stevie had been" Kurt said, hiding his face behind his hands to compose himself a bit. "This isn't a world for kids. I can't help thinking that having a quick death, like those children in their bedrooms, is better than the alternative…"

"You'd rather die than…" Puck whispered, sitting next to him and throwing an arm on his shoulders.

"The other option… it's too awful. I wouldn't… I can't…"

"It's ok, Kurt. You'll never have to suffer the other option, ok? I'll make sure of it" Puck said, hugging him a bit tighter. "You have my back, I have yours"

They sat like that for a while, both too tense too think about anything but their fears and worries. They might have cried a bit, but neither said a thing if he saw the other rub his eyes or dry his cheeks. They just sat there, basking in the comfort of knowing that, as long as they had each other, they weren't going to be alone.

"Let's get out of here, the house smells like shit and we should get going if we want to be in Lima before sunset" Puck said after a while.

It was only when they were outside the house and securing their seatbelts that they talked again.

"Where to now?" Puck asked, looking at never ending flames.

"Ottawa. There's a gun store there. I don't remember any other around here, so…" Kurt said, starting the engine with the screwdriver.

"Do you think we'll find more of this stuff?" Puck asked, looking at the fire.

"Dunno. Though I have no problems with the fires, really… I'm more worried about who ever started them. They are obviously a lot more worrisome than zombies if they can attack from a distance" Kurt said, looking slightly terrified for a second. Puck took his hand over the shift stick and gripped him.

"We'll worry about them when we meet them, let's not freak out ahead of time"

"Why are you so sensible and focused? I really can't understand it sometimes" Kurt said with a sigh as he tried to relax.

"Guess I can't have you breaking down on me right now. I'm depending a lot on you, and if you are fine then I'm fine. We can break down later, right?" he said with a shrug, but it was enough to make Kurt turn his head and look at the guy sitting next to him. There was a tension on his shoulders that hadn't been there before, and some anguish around his eyes that just didn't seem to vanish. Before he could think about what he was doing he left the wheel, took of the seat belt, and hugged Puck as hard as he could.

"We are going to make it, Puck. And we'll find our families, right?"

"Yes, we will. I'm sorry. This is…"

"It's ok. We'll break down later, right?" Kurt said with a small shy smile.

"Yeah, later" Puck said with a chuckle.

"Ok, let's go. Hopefully Ottawa won't be a problem and we'll be able to help our friends soon enough" Kurt said, strapping the seat belt across his chest again and, finally, pulling out of the drive way to go north.


	35. Part XXXIV

**Part XXXIV**

* * *

><p>The biggest difference between Ottawa and Lima, it seemed, was the size of the town and the amount of destruction around. While Lima had seemed like absolute chaos, Ottawa seemed like hell. The three bridges that crossed the Ottawa River were barricaded with cars and there were huge signs warning people about flesh eating monsters.<p>

After Kurt assured Puck that the store was just one street from the river, and that it shouldn't take that long. They picked everything they had with them on the car (it would be ridiculous to leave so many weapons ready to be stolen) and started climbing the wall of cars, trying hard not to fall or get injured in the many broken windows. Just on the other river border they found the first body. It was mangled, it had a missing leg and the shape of what was left of his face was enough to make them loose their breakfasts on the asphalt, but it looked dead enough for them not to worry about it.

They started walking, down the somewhat clean snow, looking around them in a permanent state of alert.

The big and open yards around them were really useful to watch out, but it gave them the unpromising feeling that something wasn't right, that they were about to be ambushed from somewhere, even if there really few places to hide. It just didn't felt right to have a town feel so alone.

The industrial air of the land surrounding them, just factories and silos rather than houses and trees, made them feel eerie and insecure.

They held each other wrists while walking. They didn't talk at all, the silence was too dense to try and destroy it with scared whispers.

There was a building to each side of the road, one was small, had a big parking lot and some letters named it Putnam County something or another; on the other side there was a long building, with its windows boarded up. As they approached East 2nd street, and got closer to the city, they started to put more attention to the sounds around them. Somewhere, inside a building maybe, something was growling and banging against a door.

They started walking faster, Kurt guiding Puck towards the small house that held the store. Tri-R-Guns stood in bold silver letters against a black background in a sign above the door. The door had been jammed with a dumpster and the growling came from inside the building. It was a low and violent growl, like that of a dog that is threatening to jump just any moment.

"What do we do now?" Puck asked. "Do we really need more guns?"

"It isn't the guns, it's the ammo" Kurt said, looking worried.

"Then let's face whatever is inside. At least is not going to catch us off guard" he said, with a shrug.

"Let's hope that the zombies aren't intelligent and know how to use guns" Kurt said as he helped him take the breaks off of the dumpster's wheels.

"Well… they haven't learnt to put sun glasses, my guess is that they are dumb as a door" Puck said, doing the same before starting to push the dumpster out of the way with Kurt's help. The thing was heavier than they thought, though the amount of trash inside should have been given them a clue about its weight.

As soon as the door was free it banged open, and Puck grabbed Kurt to get him out of the way.

A hiss could be heard as soon as sun light hit the zombies inside and for a while Puck and Kurt stood there, looking at the destroyed men in front of them.

It was at least three men, each in various stages of decay, smelling of death and rotten meat, with limbs hanging to their sides and patches of skin dangling from wherever they were bitten before turning. Their faces looked hungry, and they bodies emaciated, but mostly, they looked so violently murdered that just seeing them was scary enough.

Puck shot without doubting it. He just shot, not really caring about where in the body his bullet was going to end up, just wanting to do some damage.

A man fell to the ground with a groan, spluttering blood, and trying to get back up almost immediately.

The sound seemed to be enough for the other zombies to forget about the sun, though, and soon they were slowly getting out of the store, moving their arms while they tried to grab them. They were way faster than they remembered. Last night they hadn't been that fast, at least it hadn't seem so from the windows of his house. At the same time, though, he could remember Stanley and his strength, and the way that the kid had seemed able to go from one side of the hallway to them in less time than it should really be needed.

They kept shooting, but it was a bit more difficult to try and get their heads when the motherfuckers moved as much as they were moving. Shooting wasn't that much fun when you were trying to dodge flailing arms at the same time. Kurt managed to get one hard enough to send him tripping backwards, and Puck was too overjoyed by it to notice the other one getting closer to him.

A fist got him in the head and sent him stumbling to the ground.

Kurt held one hand for him to grab, so he could get up faster, never leaving his eyes or the gun off the guy who punched him. Puck got up and shot again, this time getting him in a leg and making the fucker fall too. It was Kurt who finally killed it with a headshot, but by then the other two guys were getting closer.

They took some steps back, too conscious of the way that the growls increased around them. The guys in front of them weren't the only ones in the city and it seemed the fire had alerted them about what was happening.

Kurt kept shooting, trying to keep an eye on the floor so he wouldn't trip, and looking around from time to time to check that no other zombies were coming at them from new places.

"Kurt, duck" he heard, before doing just as he was being asked too. The sound of the gunshot too close for his ears, but body of the zombie that fell over him too close for comfort. He kicked and pushed him until he fell to the ground besides him, looking even deader with the snow around him.

"We are just loosing bullets. We have to shoot them in the head or they are going to keep popping up" he said before grabbing Puck and making him run with him.

"It makes me wish I had a shotgun" Puck wheezed behind him. There was an ugly bruise forming in the side of his head where the asphalt had broken the skin.

"There should be some inside the building" Kurt said, not even bothering to catch a breath even if he was getting tired, the bag a big weight on his back that he wasn't used to. The zombies were still too close to them, not leaving them a moment of rest before they leaped at them, arms flailing and ready to grab them.

"They are out of it. Think we could run back, get what we need and blow them up after?" Puck asked, before strapping the bags closer to his back. The extra weight was starting to get too heavy.

"There aren't many other options, I guess. Let's run back"

They only ran straight ahead for a few moments before they took a turn, each on their own side, and ran back to the store. The zombies behind them had plenty of trouble turning that they lost them long enough to get inside and have Puck holding the door while Kurt got behind the counter and started taking everything he could think of.

He took Puck's gun and changed it for a shotgun and did the same with his own. It meant less space in the bag, less weight or their backs and more chances to get out of there alive.

Ammunitions, guns, knives and everything he could find, all went inside the bags without even thinking about it. They'd have time to figure things out later; right now there was no time for thinking, just doing.

There was a banging on the door, and Puck's hold of it was starting to slip.

"You might want to hurry up, dude" he said, his voice too thin and scared for Kurt's liking.

"Just a few more drawers and I'll be done" Kurt said, opening them and taking everything he could.

"There's no time, man, they are crazy strong" Puck said. Kurt took the chance to see why his voice sounded so strangled, and found him holding the door closed with one foot against the wall as leverage.

"Ok, you're right. On the count of three you let go and duck to the side, I'll shoot whatever is behind the door" Kurt said, moving in front of the counter and looking straight to the door. Puck looked apprehensive, but nodded and prepared himself to do just as Kurt asked.

"One…"

Kurt aimed, straight to where Puck's head was now. Puck swallowed.

"Two…"

Ready to bolt, ready to bolt, ready to bolt…

"Three!"

Puck let go of the door, ducked and rolled to the left, standing up as quickly as he could. The door opened and the zombies on the other side were already walking fast towards them. Kurt shot. He got one of them in the head, and he fell against the others, but it wasn't enough. They sidestepped him and continued ahead, lured by the shadows and the warm bodies inside.

Puck charged his shotgun and shot. He got another.

Shot, and shot, and shot, and shot, and the zombies went down long enough for them to try to get out of the place. Someone grabbed Kurt's ankle as he was passing the door, and he almost fell. He kicked back and stomped on someone's face until he was free… and crashed against Puck who had stopped a few feet ahead of him.

"Why did you stop?"

"Look at the sky, Kurt… It's sunset. These guys are coming out" he said, pointing to some building where zombies were starting to get out of windows and doors.

"Let's run. Now" Kurt said, giving one of the bags to Puck. The crash of a window somewhere gave them the signal to start running.


	36. Part XXXV

**Part XXXV**

* * *

><p>It was only a couple of streets, just about 700 feet from the barricade and the car, and yet it felt like a marathon. They had to run as fast as they could, and the promise of zombies about to get them was better than anything at making sure they wouldn't stop to take a breath.<p>

Part of Kurt wasn't sure what to make of the zombies they had encountered till then, first one was Stanley who might have been a little more alive than the others because he was just infected; but then zombified staff in the hospital had been pretty fast too. He didn't really remember much of the ones he shot during the night, he knew they weren't exactly fast but at the same time those were pretty much roaming and not trying to catch someone.

Maybe that was the reason the zombies behind them were running at more or less the same speed as they were, because they were absolutely focuses on making them their dinner.

"Hurry up, Kurt!" Puck said, taking his hand in his and making him take the turn to the bridge and run faster, just when a zombie was about to grab the bag and take him down. "It's just a few feet, we'll do it"

"I think I might have to go back to the cheerios if running less than a mile has me like this" Kurt says, picking up the pace and running next to Puck no matter how much his legs burned.

"Well… that sure is a nice picture for when we get out of this thing" Puck said before looking back and shooting the fastest zombie that seemed about to get them.

The car-made barricade looked just so close now, just a few feet away, they only had to get there alive somehow. It was all a matter of running fast and staying alive, even if the zombies were less than 3 feet from them.

They got to the wall of cars in the middle of the bridge and started climbing; knowing that any second of distraction could be their death. Puck jumped over a truck first, holding his hand for Kurt to grab. Kurt did it, but something was stopping him from climbing.

"Shoot it, Puck, kill it!" Kurt shrieked.

"It's too close to you!"

"Doesn't matter, shoot it!" Kurt said, his grip on Puck's hand getting stronger to avoid being carried with whatever that had got a hold of the bag on his back.

Puck aimed directly to the zombie's head, the canon being way too close to Kurt's head for his liking, but it was the only way he saw of getting Kurt alive out of the struggle. The zombie turned to look at the shotgun in front of his face, his yellow eyes so sharp that Puck pulled the trigger just because he got so scared by them that he realized that there was just no other way.

Kurt turned his head to the side immediately when Puck aimed, avoiding the recoil of the gun but not the sound of the explosion. The side of his face and the back of his head felt warm with the blood of the monster that had tried to eat him and the explosion.

Puck was shaking the body and urging Kurt to move along before he could even fully comprehend what had happened. There was a ring in his ears and he felt dizzy, the side of his face was still hot and he couldn't understand what it was that Puck was trying to say, but he followed.

There was something pulling him forwards (it was Puck's hand he realized later) jumping car after car, taking care of not stepping on broken glass.

He was still kind of dizzy when they got to the other side, the night had fallen over them but they could still hear and see some of the zombies behind the barricade.

"Guess they can't jump over the cars" Puck said, looking to the cars.

"I think I need to lie down" Kurt said, before falling to the floor in a heap.

"Are you ok?" Puck asked, crouching besides him and cleaning the zombie blood out of his face with the sleeve of his jacket.

"Not really, I'm dizzy and there's a ring in my ear" Kurt answered, blinking a couple times and looking around them.

At least the car was still there, but it was all open, like someone had tried to see what was inside. He guessed that Ottawa wasn't completely death then, that there must have been some people alive and willing to steal what they could find inside a car.

"We should go, we don't know what else we could find now that it's dark" Kurt said, trying to stand up.

"More zombies?" Puck said, with a smile, while he offered his arm so Kurt could use it.

"I was thinking about people, like whoever killed the family in Wapakoneta" he said, getting up and walking to the car. The screwdriver was under one of the seats, so they couldn't use it to start up the car, but he wasn't in any shape to drive so he gave the tool to Puck before going around the car and throwing himself to the passenger seat.

Puck understood immediately and didn't comment on it. He just started the car and went in reverse until he could turn around, the fires in the city and the smoke of the city in flames getting smaller in their rearview mirror.

* * *

><p>The fields around them and the snow falling on the road were creeping him out, mostly because there was no radio to listen to and no cars to get distracted by. All that Puck could do was focus on the road, on trying not to go so fast that he lost control of the car in the ice, and looking out if something tried to get them from the side.<p>

In the sky around them, behind some hills and stuff, he could see smoke going up to the atmosphere and the fire lighting it up. It was a scary comparison to the way that city lights did the same things during the night.

He tried to keep his thought on the road, on the lack of music, on the things that could jump because it was easier than thinking about his family, about his mom and his sister, and the blood…

It was easier than thinking about Kurt's parents, about all those neighbors they weren't going to see again, about his rabbi and his nana. It was easier than trying to keep telling himself that they were alive and it was only a matter of time before he found them.

Though, if he had to be honest, he doubted that anyone was alive by now.

Each day that passed was another day of the odds getting thinner. It was another day where a ten years old girl would have no way of getting alive if she somehow had to fight one of those creepers.

He was losing faith.

It was easier to think about the road, about Kurt and their kiss which really wasn't even that much of a deal but kept his mind busy with images of what they could be doing if it wasn't for those motherfucking zombies. It was easier to get lost on those thoughts than it was to think about what might happen in the future because Kurt's words kept ringing in his ears… and what if there was no way back, no salvation, no cure.

They were doing what they could to survive, but there was going to be a point where surviving would be impossible. They were trying to hold back for now, but there would come the day when they'd have to run… and they couldn't run for ever. It just…

There was no way of knowing if that shit was going on everywhere or it was just America, what if it was a worldwide thing. What if all the fucking countries where like this, who would save them then?

Maybe there just wasn't going to be any saving.

And wasn't that a sobering thought.

* * *

><p>They got back to Lima when the clock in Kurt's phone signed just about eleven pm. They rounded his house just to make certain than no one had gone there and left a message written on a wall "We are at McKinley" in big red letters with some ketchup.<p>

Kurt was feeling better by then, asking to be left behind the wheel again 'cause he didn't really like to be the passenger if he could help it and telling Puck to take care of those scratches in his head because they didn't know what would happen if he got in contact with Zombie blood.

By the time they got to school it was around midnight.

The school looked intimidating in its darkness, and overwhelming in size. When there were almost no cars around and they had learnt to be scared of dark closed spaces the school looked like a death trap.

There was a school bus blocking the entrance and Kurt's navigator near it, a few other cars dispersed around, but nothing more in the parking lot. Kurt left the stolen car by the school bus, sure that at least would be another step the zombies would have to jump over if they wanted to get inside.

"Should we yell at them?" Puck asked, trying to find an entrance to the building.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea while it's dark" Kurt said, taking the bags out of the car and giving one to Puck. "Maybe we should just try to get inside and look for them"

"That sounds like an awful idea, man"

"Tell me if you have another, I'd rather not stay freezing here all night" Kurt said, before walking ahead of Puck, with his flashlight on and his gun at the ready.

Puck just followed. Hopefully their friends would be all in the same place, hopefully they'd be alive, and hopefully…

Well… he just wanted them to be alive.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN:<strong> Thanks for all the reviews, I read them all and they make me the happiest. Really. Also, as "Coward Glee Lover" suggested I'm changing the story genre to horror. I really didn't though it would be this scary when I started writing, so... yeah. Thanks for the heads up!_


	37. Part XXXVI

**Part XXXVI**

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><p><strong>AN: <strong>First I'm going to go ahead and say sorry for taking so long, I just had a lot of things to do, and I went and wrote a Puckurt Big Bang... so... yeah, I'm not that good at multitasking I guess...

This is also a friendly reminder that this is a Zombie!Universe fic, so... there will be deaths, and a sad ending is more than probable...

That being said, I hope you enjoy the chapter and don't hate me too much.

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><p>The hallways were dark, much darker than they were used to, but that was a given because the clouds that had covered the sky soon after they got inside the building, and there was no moon to filter through the windows; it was difficult to be cautious about their surrounding as everything was covered in shadows. Snow was starting to fall around the building, and for once they felt a bit more at ease being inside if only because there the cold didn't bite as hard on their skin.<p>

They had to go through the main entrance, as the other one had that bus blocking it, and now that they were inside the hallways, in all its darkness, the school looked scarier than ever. To the right the hallway lead to some classrooms and teacher offices, on the left it lead to the cafeteria and janitorial rooms, closets and storages.

Both of them looked frightful under their flashlights.

"Where to?" Puck asked, checking to see if his gun was loaded.

"Cafeteria?" Kurt suggested. "It seems like the safer bet; it has fewer doors and rooms to check"

"More glass though, and there's the courtyard on the other side" Puck said, shrugging and walking ahead of them.

"I don't really feel like going to the other floors, though" Kurt winced, he put the bag higher on his back and started walking ahead, flashlight first just to see was he was shooting. He didn't want to hurt one of their friends because he was too scared.

They were about to open the door to the cafeteria when a voice stopped them.

"I thought I heard some losers in a car" the voice belonged to no other than Coach Sylvester, who was pointing a shotgun at them. "I'd get far from that door if I were you, boys. We have something blocking the way from the cafeteria, but let's not tempt it"

Coach Beiste motioned them to get closer, and lowered her own gun.

"Did Finn and the others get here alright?" Kurt asked, letting go of the door handle and walking to the teachers.

"Yes, they did. They came here, with enough house appliances to get comfy in the gym while they wait to be rescued" Sue laughed; it was an awful and scary sound, empty of hope and full of despair.

"Is it safe here then? We weren't sure if it wouldn't be overrun by creepers by now" Puck asked, walking with the women on the way to the gym.

"Not yet. We have some cleared zones, but there's still a good part of the building that's too risky to go at night" Beiste answered.

The hallways were still dark here; no emergency lights available after so long without electric power, the fuel for those had probably been used in the first days. The lockers were all opened, probably in search of something useful while being in a difficult situation; it was so weird to see them open and dark, empty.

"The classrooms on this building are clear, so are the gym and the changing rooms. We've tried to clear the kitchens and the cafeteria, but the cook had a gun before he turned. He is extremely dangerous, and we chose not to risk it" Beiste answered, while Sue kept protecting their backs.

There was a bit of wind coming from somewhere, carrying with it the cold of the night and the snow outside. Puck pulled Kurt closer to him and wrapped him in a one-armed hug as soon as he noticed the clattering of teeth.

"We are staying at the gym. That way we can make sure everyone is ok" Beiste continued. "If you need to go to the little boy room, or get out of the place for whatever reason, you need to go in pairs or a group. Never, under any circumstance, alone"

"Oh, Shannon, I'm sure these two are going to forget anything you say as soon as they see one of those zombies out there. Kids nowadays are selfish, when it's their own life what is in danger they are going to go away running with the tails between their legs" Sue sais, startling Puck enough to look back at her. She didn't seem to notice that someone, other than Beiste, was looking at her. "And you know what? They'll be doing the right thing. In a situation like this you are alone; it's run or be eaten. You can't be a hero"

"Why are you here then?" Kurt asked. "You seem the type that would run out on her own and keep going killing everything on sight"

"And leaving you, nothing more than kids, to stumble upon hell and expect you to survive? No, thank you, you can all be grateful when we get out of this alive, but until then you are going to listen to your betters" Sue said.

"We found Quinn on our way out of the city, she kept asking us to turn back to McKinley, see if some of you were still alive" Beiste said, turning the corner in front of Spanish classroom. "We found other kids here, and decided to stay"

"Quinn is fine?" Puck asked, surprised and a bit hopeful. Kurt joined him in the surprise, after all they had been the ones to go to her house and find nothing but proof that she wasn't alive.

"Q is alive, but she was seriously injured as she tried to escape. We are trying to do what we can, but there isn't much" Sue answered. Her tight jaw and the tense eyes betrayed her worry.

"We had some pharmacy stuff in the cars" Kurt tried.

"Yes, Hiram told us. It's helping control her pain, but I doubt it will do much in the end" Beiste answered.

"How bad it is?" Puck asked, worried.

"I'm no doctor, but it's pretty bad" Beiste answered.

"She is too fragile to be moved, and yet she needs medical attention as soon as possible" Sue said.

"The doctors at St. Rita were all zombies already. We only found two alive, and both were patients" Kurt supplied.

"See? This is why you should leave this is the hands of people trained for this kind of things. Only you fools would run to a hospital during zombie apocalypse, when every handbook tells you is the first place to avoid" Sue exclaimed "We didn't have the time to make that kind of mistakes when I was a sniper for the marines, back when we were fighting with Russia for the dominion of Africa. You knew that there was nothing like going back for the wounded"

Kurt just looked at Puck, and maybe the shared a bit of a smile for the old times, listening to Sue ramble away on things that were neither true nor important at the minute. It was so strange to feel that predictability now, when everything seem to be upside down, that it was impossible not to feel like they had stepped in a place and time when things were just as always; like you could walk into the chorus room and expect Brad and Schue, waiting for them to start a class; or have Figgings in his office, thinking of ways to spend less money on the school.

It filled a hole in their hearts that they hadn't realized that was, slowly, being created, and at the same time, it made them realize how precious those moments were, and how difficult it would be to have them back; if not impossible.

The hallway next to the gym wasn't as dark as the others; for starters there were two guys from the football team on the door, both with flashlights and some bats, pointing at them with the lights when they heard the noise.

"Guys, you're alive!" Anthony Rashad exclaimed after a while. Kurt barely knew him, but he was one of the few guys who hadn't bothered them for being in Glee, so there wasn't that much interaction between them anyway.

"We are Nelson and Tinsley?" Sue exclaimed, pointing to the other door, which stood unguarded.

"They went to get some desks and chairs to block that hallway" Azimio answered, pointing to the hallway ahead of them.

"Go inside, I'm sure you want to talk with the other misfits or something" Sue said, loading her gun and going with Beiste in the direction that the guys had pointed. "Though, before I forget. Did you find any ammo or guns in your quest?" she asked, looking pointedly to the bag Kurt carried with him.

"We did, coach" Kurt answered.

"Give some to these idiots, will you? We can't have the guys that protect the door armed with just some bats" she says, before slapping them over the head for their stupidity.

Puck looks at Kurt, and he notices the hesitation in him as he takes off his bag. When they thought about going back to McKinley, they never thought that there would be living people there, not really. He doubted that Kurt had actually thought about what would it mean to share everything with more people now, he knew he was. He could already see the way they would eat less each day and the way fight would end up happening more often, what would they do when they ran out of water, and how long it would take them to decide on things of importance like going back to town to get more food or what would they do if they ran out of ammo.

"Do you even know how to shoot?" Kurt asks, his voice firm and sure, even if the hand holding his own gun it's trembling with how hard he is gripping it.

"Do you need to see my NRA card or something, man? It's not like we have the time to learn how to shoot here, do we?" Azimio asked looking menacing.

"We can't waste ammo. If you don't know how to shoot it would be better to have someone else guarding the door" Kurt answered, bitch face in place.

"I'll teach him as soon as we get those guys back, but we can't have people unarmed here" Beiste said, trying to calm Kurt down. For once, he listened.

Kurt opened one of the messenger bags, managed to keep everyone from peeking at what might be inside, and took two glocks which he passed to Anthony; he didn't even bother to look at Azimio. It took Puck a couple of seconds to remember the way that Azimio had bullied Kurt the year before and that it might be the reason for the animosity between them.

"I'm keeping the ammo with me, so don't waste the clips inside them". Kurt said, closing the bag and letting it hang behind him again.

"Come on, man, give us a few more just in case" Azimio complained.

"Dude, we went through hell getting more ammo, and you don't even know how to shoot" Puck replied, understanding where Kurt was coming from if the grateful look sent his way was any indication. "The more ammo you have around you, there more ammo you'll lose. Just be careful and shoot to the head"

"Coach, you can't let them-!"

"Porcelain and the man-child with the squirrel on his head are right. Adams, Rashad, you two are going to have those weapons as a precaution, and you are not to use them unless you smell the rotting smell of zombie breath on your faces, you hear me? Are we clear? Good" Coach Sylvester said, shooing Puck and Kurt inside the Gym.

There were small groups around the place, each with a candle and blankets. Some were keeping watch; others were sleeping for a while. Puck could see some new faces, which were all in the same group, bunching up over figure on the floor, which was covered with a blanket to her chin and looked lost in the candle light.

It was Quinn.

He took Kurt's hand in his and walked directly to her.

Quinn's hair was fanning out around her, her blond locks laced with maroon. He hoped it was a new hair dye. God, he hoped it was a new hair dye, he needed it to be.

Santana was besides her, holding her hand and keeping her bangs from her forehead, and holding back tears as she tried to smile for her friend. Brad, the guy that played the piano, was on the other side, looking in one of the bags that they had stolen from the hospital.

Quinn looked pale, so pale under the moonlight that came from the windows, and the light from the candle only helped to make her lost eyes look duller.

"Hey, Quinn" Puck whispered, kneeling besides her.

"Puck!" came her anxious gasp. She looked at him, only it seemed that she couldn't find him in front of her, and her eyes grew lost, looking around him in search for his face. He took her other hand in hers and places it on his cheek.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, noticing her sweaty hair and the way her eyes traveled around the place in search of something.

"Cool, dizzy, thirsty" she answered, licking her lips.

"What happened?"

"I took refuge in my church, but they came at night… I ran away on a car, and crashed because of the black ice" she said, gripping Puck's hand so hard that he remembered another occasion, so long ago, when she gripped hard while bring Beth to life. He could feel her fast pulse under her skin, her beating getting as fast as her breathing.

"Did you break something?" he asked, looking at Santana and Brad too for confirmation.

"No, I just hit the door really hard… I should be fine in a few days, I'm sure…" she said, trying to smile.

"You'll get better, Quinney, just wait" Santana said. "At least her fever broke a little bit ago" she added, looking at Puck and Kurt.

"Do you want me to stay here with you?" he asked.

Kurt put his hand on his shoulder, but he didn't feel it as a pressure to get away or to do something he didn't want to, he just took it as a form of showing support; Kurt was trying to be there for him, anchoring him to the ground when the pallor of Quinn skin told him that she was anything but fine.

"No, it's ok… You'll be more useful somewhere else… just… I'm so happy to have seen you safe…" she said, with a broken voice.

"So am I, Q. Now rest, keep your energy, ok?" Puck said, cleaning her forehead from the cold sweat, and trying to smile. He felt Kurt's hand on his shoulder give him strength to stand up.

Together they walked to the other side of the gym, where Finn could be seen with a gun on his hand and a flashlight pointing to one of the exits. Rachel was sleeping behind him, under a blanket. Her dads were with her, getting warmth from each other in that cold night.

Puck sat at Finn's left; Kurt at his right. They didn't need any light to notice that Finn was crying, his quiet sniffs and the way he kept drying his cheeks with the back of his hands were proof enough.

"Hey man, what's it?" Puck asked, throwing an arm around his shoulders.

"Puck, Kurt… guys, you're alive… God, you two are alive" he exclaimed, looking surprised. "For a moment I thought… I'm so glad you're alive"

"We're alive, Finn" Kurt said, placing his hand over his knee and patting it lightly. "Are you ok?"

"We found Schue and Figgings, and that math teacher that smells" Finn said as an answer. "Schue was missing an arm and half his face was hanging… Figgings was being eaten… I think I saw one of our neighbors, Kurt… the guy that washed his car like 3 times a day… and there was the mom of a girl I had a crush in middle school…"

"Schue?" Kurt asked.

"Coach Sylvester tried to kill him, but couldn't. He almost got Tina… Coach Beiste was the one to get him, she blew his brain… I saw his brain… it was pink. His brain was pink, like cotton candy…"

Puck looked at Kurt and saw the way his eyes grew sadder with every word that Finn said. He saw the way he took Finn's gun in his hand and took it when it was handed to him. He saw the way that Finn's eyes grew larger when he saw Kurt's face. He saw his friend being engulfed in Kurt's arms as he tried to battle with his tears and lost.

His friend was crumbling, and he couldn't do anything but watch.

"I saw Schue's brain. It was like cotton candy… I wonder if we're ever going to see cotton candy again… I don't think I'd be able to eat it…"

Puck rested his head on Finn's back, just under Kurt's hands.

Like this he could feel his quick breathing and the way his sobs just got stronger. One of Kurt's hands started to comb his Mohawk, and that was what it took to realize that, while Finn might have been shaken by seeing Schue's death… it affected everyone.

Death was getting closer, looming over their heads. The only people they could be sure that they were alive where those within eye sight. Those they hadn't found could as well be death by now…

And that included their friends.

That included their families.


	38. Texts from Blaine and Part XXXVII

**New Text from: Blaine Anderson**

**Blaine:** Please be alright too. I love you.

**Blaine:** Things are awful here. My family is dead I think. I miss you, please be ok. You're all I have left now.

**Blaine:** I miss you so much. Please be alive.

**Blaine:** Kurt, I'm going to Lima. I'll check at your house and McKinley. I love you. Please, please be alive.

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><p>Finn fell asleep at some point, with his head under Kurt's chin and his arms wrapped around himself. Kurt looked uncomfortable, but made no sign that he wanted to move from his place, he even hugged Finn closer, so Puck left him there, keeping an eye on them just in case.<p>

The night wasn't even close to over by then. The eerie sound of the silence outside only accentuated the small gasps and moans coming from Quinn, Finn's quiet snores and the way that Rachel couldn't seem to stop trembling in her sleep.

He could see Hiram and Leroy trying to keep Quinn's temperature up, and the way that Santana didn't seem to let go of the girl's hand. He supposed that, now that Britt was gone, Quinn was the only one that was really tying Santana to the way her life was before all this mess happened. He could get the way that she was trying to keep tethered to it when everything was going to hell. The whole situation made him want to scream.

There was some noise from outside the doors, people talking in rushed voices and things hitting the floor. He was immediately on alert. After a few minutes of that, there was the distinctive explosion of gun fire. He felt Kurt slip into attention at his side straightaway, holding his gun closer to his body at the same time he tried to rouse Finn from sleep.

The doors opened, Coach Sylvester and Coach Beiste all but run inside, carrying that guy from the hockey team, Rick, on their arms. He had a bleeding cut just over his eyebrow and he looked about ready to faint or throw up all over himself, maybe both.

"We need someone out there right now. Those guys won't be enough if they can't fire a gun" Beiste said, looking around the gym for a place where they could put Rick.

Finn was awake now, and Kurt was getting up and walking outside. Without prompting Puck followed him out of the gym, trusting Finn to take care of the bags with supplies while everyone was busy. They wouldn't trust them to anyone else, and Finn was in no state to go out and help.

Outside things were starting to get a bit crazy. It was dark, and the guys had little to no light to check who was trying to attack them, but it was obvious that the explosion from the gun had carried off through the building. Puck only had to point his flashlight to the end of the hallways to see some eyes reflecting the light.

"Kurt" he said, nudging the guy and pointing straight ahead.

"It's too far, I can't aim at him from here" Kurt hissed.

Azimio and Shane were aiming their guns to the other side of the hallway, with Anthony pointing his rapidly dying flashlight at something at their feet.

It took Puck a while to recognize the guy on the ground but, even with his neck bent in an unnatural way, there was no way to mistake him. This was had been on the band, the blond with the guitar. They had been there for so long and Puck couldn't even remember his name. He could remember some of the songs that the guy said he knew by heart, but not his name. Did that make him a bad person?

"Puck, the flashlight" Kurt reminded him in a hurry. He turned back and pointed at the zombie again, this time it was closer. He was moving slowly, but that only until he got the light in his eyes again. After a second, the guy hid behind his arms, he turned back to them and run. As if used to the light. And… wouldn't that be a scary development.

Kurt only waited a couple seconds, enough for the guy to get a bit too close for Puck's liking, and shot.

It was only a couple of shoots, but they went straight through the zombie's forehead.

The guy fell on his back with a groan.

"Geez, boy, who knew you had all that hidden" Azimio whistled.

"Shut it" Kurt snapped, barely looking in their direction. Puck just snorted.

Some groans came from a door close to the guys; the hallway was silent enough to listen. And they were on alert in a second, moving Azimio and Shane out of the way, swapping sides.

"Rashad, stay and give us some light would you!" Puck asked, throwing his flashlight to the guy as he made sure his gun was loaded.

The zombies didn't wait for him to check, and before he had had even started to aim, the door opened and steps could be heard, along with groans and growls that shouldn't be coming from human bodies.

Kurt started shooting almost immediately. Hitting creepers on their face or shoulders, but almost never missing. The same couldn't be said for Puck, who tried shooting them in the head but, fuck, it was difficult. At least these didn't seem to be limping any faster than usual, which was fine by him. They didn't need fast creepers.

The English teacher, one guy he didn't know, that guy from the cafeteria, that lady that waited at Breadsticks…

How had they even got there? Like, why did they think that going to the school was a good idea? Or why had they gravitated there when they were bitten? Did they even think?

"How many of these fuckers are going to pop up!" cried Azimio after a while, shooting on his side of the hallway too.

"How many did you kill during the day?" Puck asked.

"About fifteen?" Shane answered, uncertain.

"Well, that's looks like a lot for a day, but probably not enough… We must have shot about fifty yesterday at home" Kurt answered, and maybe Puck had a second of shock realizing that Kurt had said 'at home' as if it had been his own house, but that didn't mean that Puck stopped shooting. "And they come out during the dark, so we should be getting more or less the same numbers…"

"It's gonna be a looong night" Puck sang.

Kurt sniggered by his side as the guys groaned behind them.

It was a long night.

The zombies never walked alone, they were always in groups, and they were getting faster with each minute. When Finn and Rachel took over for Shane and Azimio, there were enough bodies around them to start pilling. And the boys looked green and tired. Kurt looked just as tired too.

"Hey, can you send Mike and Tina out too? We'd like to get some rest before sun's up and we need to clear the rest of the building" Puck said, sparing a last look at Kurt who seemed to be yawning too strongly to listen in to the conversation.

Shane just nodded.

A few minutes later Puck was dragging Kurt inside, to the place were Finn had left Kurt's bag and guns. Someone had thrown a couple blankets over them, maybe the ones that Rachel had been using before, but he could already tell that it was too cold for them to be any use.

They lost little time getting ready, taking off their coats to put them on top of the blankets so they could provide a bigger insolation while their bodies generated heat.

"Do you think it's safe?" Kurt asked in a whisper.

"What are you talking about?" Puck asked back, holding Kurt even closer to his chest. There was no resistance from him.

"Is it safe to sleep? Maybe we should try to sleep during the day, when there's less risk of someone falling asleep on their watch"

"Yeah, maybe, but we're dead on our feet. If we don't sleep now it's going to be us falling asleep while we shouldn't" Puck muttered against Kurt's hair.

"I'm so tired… but my brain can't stop working"

"Do I have to kiss you again?" Puck asked, not really sure if he was kidding or not.

"No, it's ok. Just hug me"

Morning came too soon for them.

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><p>There was a huge contrast on the way that the school showed itself during the morning compared to what they had seen the night before. Sure, the acrid smell of death was still all around them and there wasn't anything new to be seen inside the gym, but Kurt stirred in Puck's arms and he was actually able to see the way that his lashes started fighting sleep.<p>

It was kinda cute.

A bit of 'adorable' in the middle of the hell they had been thrown in.

"Hey" Kurt whispered, crawling deeper into Puck's embrace. They hadn't separated at all during the night, they hadn't even moved, and it seemed that cold hadn't really hit them.

"We should probably get up, get something to eat" Puck wondered, not really wanting to. He threw the blankets over their heads, giving them a bit more privacy and some insolation from the cold that was biting their cheeks. With both their heads under the blankets, breath mingling between them, he wasn't sure he was up to face the world just yet.

"Don't wanna" Kurt pouted.

"Me neither" Puck laughed.

They had a few minutes like that, enjoying the warmth and feeling lazy for the first time in a while. Until Sue came and took their blankets from them, letting the cold hit them straight away.

"Wake up, lovebirds. There're zombies to kill before we can rest" she said, leaving their blankets a few feet from them over their bags, Kurt quickly got their coats to put them on.

"Did anything else happen during the night?" Kurt asked in the middle of a yawn.

"Quinn is getting worse, and Rick might have started a fever" Sue answered when they got close enough to where the adults were giving out cereal bars and tea.

"Is everyone accounted for?" Puck asked suddenly, looking around. Something was wrong.

"Santana is taking care of Quinn; Tina, Mike, Finn and Rachel are sleeping. Coach Beiste and Hiram just went out there, with Shane and Rashad to stand guard while we eat. Azimio is taking care of Rick" Leroy recounted.

"Where's Lauren?" Puck asked.

"Maybe outside?" Kurt suggested. "You want to check?" Puck just nodded.

They got their things, food and weapons and got out of the gym. Puck didn't need to see around them to know that most of the people inside were either unconscious or too worried to sleep. It did made him think about how the hell were they going to go about clearing up the building if half the people was out of commission.

On the hallway, sitting on some fancy chairs that hadn't been there when they were at watch, were Beiste and Hiram, Rashad and Shane seemed to be barely more awake than them, but they were still fighting sleep.

Lauren was sitting on a desk, leaning on a wall.

"Hey, girl, how are you?" Puck asked, sitting on the desk next to her.

"Ansty" she said with a weird smile. "And hungry, but I dunno if it's the Cheerio food we're eating or… you know…" she shrugged.

Puck just nudged her shoulder, and got a bit of a smile in return.

"What are our plans for today, Coach?" Kurt asked Beiste, leaning on the wall next to her.

"There shouldn't be any zombies in this hallway, because don't seem the kind to win a hurdle race. So we clear up this floor and check the upper floor" she suggested, hands on her pockets and a bat firmly in her hand.

"Is there even enough people for that?" Shane asked.

"Well, there'll have to be. We can't leave the gym unprotected, if this is where we're going to be sleeping and taking care of the sick people. So we'll have to divide, maybe in threes or fours, so that each group can take care of a wing of the building". The hallway in front of the gym was barely lit in the early hours of dawn but it was better than the languid darkness inside. The calm all around them was easy to mistake as peace, it was the smell of the corpses around them what kept them grounded.

"What are we going to do with all these creepers?" Lauren asked to those around her. "They smell really bad"

"We could try and bury them, or burn them" Puck shrugged

"What if it carries through the ashes in the air, Puckerman? I ain't risking breathing them in, man" Azimio complained.

"Maybe we could use them as bait. Leave them far from here and hope the rest of them decide to eat them rather than us" suggested Hiram.

"We could do a corpse wall like they did on 300" suggested Puck as a joke. The faces around him implied they weren't going to laugh about it anytime soon... except for Kurt who had an interested look on his eyes.

"That isn't a bad idea. We already know these guys aren't exactly climbers. And Ottawa's barricaded bridges were a clever idea"

"Yeah, we could barricade the streets around school and keep them out, at least it'll give us more time to deal with the creepers inside the school without having to worry about new ones" Puck added, smirking when he noticed the considering looks he was receiving now.

"Any car we find on the parking lot would be useful too" Kurt supplied.

"Where do you guys get all this knowledge about zombies?" Beiste complained. "We weren't prepped for this when I was at school"

"Lots of violent video games would be my guess". Hiram stage whispered to her.

"So what? We're just going to hole out in here until what? We get too hungry to keep on living? 'Cause we're going to run out of food at some point and cannibalism isn't something I'd like to try" Azimio complained, looking pained.

"Guess that depends... we could always gather a group and ransack a grocery store" Puck shrugged. "It's what we did about medical supplies after all"

"Dunno man, I'm pretty sure Wal-Mart and K-mart were in flames before I came here" Azimio supplied, while looking bored.

"Well, you can go looking for another place then. You're the one complaining about food after all" Puck got on his feet, Kurt going to stand beside him in a second.

"Maybe we could start splitting teams? And making sure that Puck and Azimio are really far from each other?" Beiste suggested.

"As if I'd want to be with his bunch on men in tights, are you guys gonna sing the zombies to death?"

"You sure you wanna talk like that to the dudes that actually know how to use a gun?" Puck asked while closing in on him. Beiste's arm kept him from going further, just as much as Kurt's hand on the back of his jacket.

"You guys want to cool it off. Nerves are already flying off the handle, and we don't want any stress related fights, we've more than enough with the zombies" Coach ordered, keeping an eye on Azimio.

Puck shrugged her arm off while Azimio just made a face and walked inside.

"Can you guys look out here for a while, I'll tell everyone else the plan for today" Coach started, walking inside close behind the guy. Shane stood up after her and told Hiram he was going to get Leroy to come out.

Kurt put a hand on Puck's shoulder and motioned him closer to the desks again. Lauren knocked her shoulder against him with a smile, and pulled a fist to bump. He did with a self-deprecating smile.

"At least we can count on Finn to keep the guns and ammo with him, right?" Kurt tried with an unsure grimace.

"We should put it inside a locker when we secure the main hallway on the main building" Puck supplied.

"We should put a little ammo in a lot of lockers, that way we could always find some if we ran out of it in a hurry" Lauren was smiling, even if she looked really pale and sick. "You know, like those zombie games, you always can find ammo in the weirdest place and it gets you out of a hurry"

"If only this were a game" Kurt sighs.

"If this was a game I'd be like… a super cute, size 2, blond girl with a gun, and Mohawk over there would be part of some police department, or cuter" Lauren laughed.

"I could totally rock some aviators"

"There're no open gay characters on zombie apocalypse games, right?" Kurt asked.

"There's a crossdresser in Code: Verónica, but I think it was the bad guy. Never played that game, to be honest" Lauren shrugged.

"Well, I guess you're ground breaking in every instance" Puck nudged Kurt with an elbow before throwing an arm around him and holding him close.

Silence came after a few seconds, the cold of the morning coming even stronger now that dawn was on them. On the other side of the wall, that separated them from the school, they could hear the slow sounds of the zombies going around, looking for food they were not going to get, to soothe a hunger that would never really stop.

The sky was higher on the sky now, reflecting on the snow they could see from there, bringing light to the corpses on the ground, and faces to the kills made during the night.

"Is that Miss P?" Lauren asked, pointing ahead to a red head that was tucked under some stranger's arm.

"Yeah…" Puck nodded.

"We should probably move her before Coach Beiste comes back" Lauren suggested, getting on her feet to do so without any other prompting.

"We'll back you up," Kurt commented, making sure that Puck was with him "just in case any of those isn't really dead".

"Can never be too sure" Puck commented.

"I'll watch over you guys from here, ok?" Hiram laughed, grinning when the door opened and Leroy came out of the gym.

Near the snow, under the outside hallway of the second floor, the bodies of the night's before kills were laying around, some closer to the gym than the others, but most of them close enough for them to notice the faces.

Miss Pillsbury was missing half her face, and three of the fingers of her left hand. There were tears on her clothes and a lot of dirt on her knees. Blood was everywhere on her skin, and the only thing Kurt could think was that it was better this way, she wasn't fit to live in a world like the one they were trying to survive in. There was no way she could've handled it.

It was better this way.

Lauren lifted her easily, draping her body across her shoulder in just one movement.

"Where do I put her?" She asked, making sure she was secure. There weren't any signs of life coming from Miss P at least.

"Dumpster maybe? At least until we get start on the barricades. This is more about hiding her than anything" Puck supplied.

"Yeah, poor Beiste had more than enough with Mr. Schuester yesterday" Lauren agreed.

The sound of the dumpster lid falling over the corpse was maybe too final when everything was as quiet as it was right then. There was echo and there were no other sounds that could mask it as it carried through the school. The three of them looked over to the gym; just to make sure that neither Beiste of Sue were out there, watching them.

"Is it cruel that I can totally see her freaking out about being in a dumpster?" Puck asked.

"Yes, it is. But I think we can all see that" Kurt answered with a grin.

"Let's get back"

* * *

><p>"Ok, so, each will pair will take a stick and those with the short one will have to go inside the school and those with the large one will take the bodies outside-" Rachel began, holding a bunch of coffee stirrers in her hands. Sue just took all of them and threw them across the gym.<p>

"That's nonsense. The big, weightlifting or burly boys will carry the bodies to the barricades. The rest of the men, the not so burly, and the women, will take care of the school. And the frail little ones with guns will take care of the sick people" she ordered, pointing at people with each of her descriptions.

So far she divided every pair they had already decided on.

"I'm not leaving Rachel alone" Finn started, after Sue decided that Kurt and Rachel had to tend to the sick people.

"We're not splitting" Kurt and Puck said at the same time.

"Tough luck" Sue began.

"No".

"No, you will listen to me. You will do as you're ordered and you'll do it with a smile on your face. The faster we get those bodies outside the school grounds, and protect ourselves from external dangers, the better. If you guys hurry on the barricades, then you can go back to your boyfriends slash girlfriends sooner" Sue began, not bothering in hearing excuses. "Remember there'll be more bodies to get outside as soon as the school is cleared, so it's not like your job will be done just like that".

Kurt and Puck exchanged a look. It was clear that there was no way around it, no while Sue was lording over the group, and neither felt the extreme need to change that situation.

"Shouldn't the strong people be inside, fighting the bad guys?" Beiste asked.

"No need, that's what Porcelain got all those nice shiny guns for, right?" Sue answered, not even glancing at Kurt to see a confirmation. That made him think about where to hide a couple shotguns immediately, there was no way he was going to give everyone a gun and hope for the best.

"I know nothing about sick people" Kurt commented. "When my dad was sick the only thing I could do for him was cook healthy stuff, and Quinn doesn't look like she'll get better with a soup. But I have really good aim, I'd be a lot more useful clearing the building" he added.

"I have no problem taking care of Quinn on my own" Rachel butted in.

"Yeah, no, a zombie will come inside and you'll shit yourself" Santana complained. "I'll stay with you and watch your butts. Lady lips can take my place inside the school".

"Ok, so, that's it? Gym is manned by Rachel and Santana; Brad and Tina can watch out on the Gym hallway; Sizes, Shannon, Adams, Rashad, Puckerman, and Tinsley can take care of the barricades. The rest of us go inside the School. Mike, Leroy and I will take the second floor; Hiram, Hudson and Porcelain can take the first floor. We'll leave the auditorium and the courtyard to the last" Sue said, making sure that everyone listened. "Now, get prepared we're leaving in 10".

Puck made his way to Kurt side almost immediately, whispering under his breath. "We need to hide some guns".

"I was thinking the same thing" Kurt whispered back. "We should take the shotguns, one each, and hide some guns on ourselves before we distribute the rest".

"Think we could do it before they get here asking for them?" Puck asked.

"We'll have to. Maybe while we get our things? Hide them inside your jacket; I know it has inside pockets. Mine doesn't, but I can put them in my waistband for now" Kurt suggested, walking Puck over to where they had left their things that morning.

The bags were there, just like they had been, completely untouched, under the blankets. They made fast work of their plans, trying to be as subtle as possible. They jumped about a foot when they felt the hands on their shoulders.

"We were just counting how many guns we had to give around" Kurt answered without prompting.

"I don't care. Hiram told me you placed a body inside a dumpster" Sue began. "Was it Emma?"

"Yeah, it was her" Puck answered, looking at the Coach, somewhat surprised.

"It was me who killed her during the night. I didn't want Shannon to have to do it, so… Anyway, is there any way, Puckerman, for you to make sure that that body gets as far from the school grounds as possible? I don't want Shannon finding her on chance".

"Sure"

"Ok, that's it. Don't hide too many guns, you won't be able to walk without them going off and shooting your gonads" she commented, before going away.


End file.
